LOST FINCK BUILDING PROMPTED NEW LAW
Demolition of West Side site led to bill to save landmarks
On a peaceful Sunday morning in 1991, a bulldozer destroyed one of the city’s historic West Side structures and more than 100 years of memories.
The infamous demolition of the Finck Building resulted in a state law protecting venerated landmarks.
The building’s future had been part of negotiations between a joint venture and Bexar County commissioners on the sale of Vista Verde Plaza, a five-story office tower, for $3.1 million.
One pending issue was what to do with the old Finck Building.
County officials had wanted the landmark at Pecos and Martin razed. But representatives of Vista Verde Joint Venture said that couldn’t be done because the building was in the National Register of Historic Places and was listed as “exceptional” under the city’s historic preservation ordinance.
A demolition crew of about a dozen men, aided by a bulldozer and frontend loader, resolved the dilemma.
“It was pretty bizarre,” Gene Camargo, the city’s director of building inspections, told the San Antonio Express-News after the Feb. 17, 1991, incident.
According to witnesses, work began about 7:45 a.m. By the time Pat Osborne, city historic preservation officer, arrived at the site in the Cattleman Square historic district, the building was a pile of rubble.
“I’ve never been so disgusted in my life,” Osborne told the ExpressNews that day.
The crew with Vela Construction was cited for demolition without a permit, a misdemeanor.
It had been 109 years since German immigrants August and Joseph Woeltz built the two-story, brick-and-stone building, one of the first structures in the area.
The Romanesque-revival structure had distinctive arched openings and a molded cornice on top, with decorative brickwork in a checkerboard pattern.
“Woeltz’s Hall” was a grocery market and saloon until the turn of the century, when it became the offices and storage area for manufacturing enterprises such as the Zorro Tobacco Co. and the Finck Cigar Co. It was generally known in later years as the Finck Building.
Two days after the demolition, municipal charges were filed against the contractor and a project officer for the joint venture. It appeared that they might be fined as little as $1,000. But when the City Council met that week, city leaders wanted whoever ordered the demolition to rebuild the structure, the maximum penalty available under an ordinance that had been strengthened in 1987.
“Unless we take the most drastic action we can, we are going to have a repetition of this,” then Mayor Lila Cockrell said, according to the San Antonio Light.
Because the principals in the joint venture denied prior knowledge of the demolition, had sold the Finck property and would not disclose or could not remember the buyer’s name, it was hard to finger anyone responsible.
But the destruction of the Finck Building appeared financially motivated because negotiations on the sale of Vista Verde Plaza hinged on acquisition of a demolition permit, which would have been very difficult to obtain.
Just weeks after the demolition, state Sen. Frank Tejeda filed a bill requiring responsible parties to rebuild historic buildings that are damaged or destroyed or to pay an amount equal to the estimated replacement cost to be used for preservation projects.
But because the bill was not retroactive, it could not be used to make anyone pay the estimated $200,000 it would have cost to replace the Finck Building.
In the end, the joint venture paid a $25,000 fine to the city for the demolition. The sale of Vista Verde Plaza to the county went forward. And Tejeda’s bill was signed into law.