Demolishing an Almost-New Building, Because Why Not?

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24mm — 1/200 sec, f/2.8, ISO 100 —map & image data — nearby photos
Beauty is Fleeting
(Former) Wedding Venue Rokusisui (旧六絲水), Kyoto Japan

This photo is from a blog post seven years ago, “Exposing forSingle-Shot HDR (Sort Of)”, using photos from a special visit to a newly-built about-to-open wedding venue in Kyoto. (Photosfrom that visit also appeared on “Heian Shrine Gate From a NewPerspective”.)

As lovely as the new venue was, it seems that they weren't able to make it as a wedding venue; they stopped doing business a fewyears ago (prior to COVID). The lovely building in the super-amazing location has been vacant since.

But the building won't be vacant for much longer, because the building won't be for much longer.It's being demolished! The five-story reinforced-concrete building is not even eight years old. Wow, what a waste.

Living right next to the building, a meeting was held to explain the demolition and its schedule, attended by tworepresentatives of the company doing the demolition. Based on their attire, it was clear that one was an office worker, and theother was someone who was likely to be the on-site foreman. They explained the schedule with attention to the concerns that neighbors would have(noise, dust, etc.).

When they were done, they asked whether there were any questions. There was a long silence, so I decided to ask my off-topicquestion. I said that what I really wanted to know had nothing to do with their work (the demolition of the building),but if they had information, I'd appreciate to hear: why is this almost-new building being demolished, and what will replace it?

This opened a flood-gate of discussion from the few other residents that bothered to attend.

In the end, the answer was "It's owned by a holding company in Kobe (a nearby city), and they truly don't know what they'll do with the land".

It's very hard to believe that they'll spend a quarter-million dollars to demolish a six-million-dollar building (costs are myinformed estimates) without knowing what they'll do with it, so it's likely that they'll make condominiums, which is, to currentarea residents, perhaps the most-objectionable thing that area zoning allows.

(My view is that it's their land and they can do whatever zoning allows. The building that I live in was built just 16years ago on land that had been more or less a big garden, so I'm sure the building was a shock to the surrounding residents. But it wasn't their land, it was the land of the person that made the building.)