County historical commission tours Lincoln Center, says no mold, flood damage

EL PASO, Texas The El Paso County Historical Commission believes the Lincoln Center can be renovated easily and cheaply following an interior walk-through of the building.

"We got to walk through the center, we had an escort from TXDOT who owns the building, and we got to look through the whole building, said Bernie Sargent, chairman of the commission. Other than a lot of garbage laying around from when they abandoned the building in 2006, it was in pretty good shape, said Sargent.

Video of the interior was provided to KFOX14 through the commission courtesy of Capstone Productions Inc.

"We did see some evidence of a little bit of rain damage where the windows were kept open, Sargent said. "We didn't see any mold, nothing out of the norm for this environment, no flood damage whatsoever, we could see no trace of any flooding whatsoever in the lower level where the theater is.

Sargent said an art expert and architect were on the tour as well.

"The conclusion they had was the remediation on that building for adaptive re-use or re-use of any kind would be relatively inexpensive compared to demolition.

The commission sent a letter to the Texas Department of Transportation explaining that if asbestos is removed, resealing work is done, and the building is repainted, the century of history inside of it can be preserved.

Monetarily, I think it would make sense for El Paso, historically it has a lot of attributes, said Sargent.

See the original post here:
County historical commission tours Lincoln Center, says no mold, flood damage