{"id":320692,"date":"2023-03-02T12:33:42","date_gmt":"2023-03-02T20:33:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/?p=320692"},"modified":"2023-03-02T12:33:42","modified_gmt":"2023-03-02T20:33:42","slug":"mission-hills-heritage-fate-of-old-library-unknown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/mission-hills-heritage-fate-of-old-library-unknown\/","title":{"rendered":"Patrimonio de Mission Hills: Se desconoce el destino de la antigua biblioteca"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The old Misi\u00f3n<\/span>\u00a0Hills<\/span>\u00a0Branch\u00a0Biblioteca<\/span>, February 2023. (Photo b<\/span>y Jennifer Machian)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The old\u00a0Misi\u00f3n<\/span>\u00a0Hills<\/span>\u00a0Biblioteca<\/span>\u00a0was once a vibrant community treasure.\u00a0 Located at the western entrance of\u00a0Misi\u00f3n<\/span>\u00a0Hills<\/span>, el\u00a0Biblioteca<\/span>\u00a0enticed patrons of all ages, with its shiny wall of windows and iconic cantilevered roof.<\/p>\n

Long-time\u00a0Misi\u00f3n<\/span>\u00a0Hills<\/span>\u00a0resident, Caroline Ridout Stewart, who frequented the\u00a0Biblioteca<\/span>\u00a0as a sixth grader in the 1960s, recalls the\u00a0Biblioteca<\/span>\u00a0warmly, as a recreational space for children and teens to gather after school.\u00a0 \u201cThe windows were always filled with posters\u201d advertising community events and \u201cthere used to be books out front [on a cart] you could buy.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, the\u00a0Biblioteca<\/span>\u2019s heyday as a hub of neighborhood activity is long past.\u00a0 The\u00a0Biblioteca<\/span>\u00a0was vacated in January 2019 and has sat empty ever since.\u00a0 A high-rise has sprouted-up next door, just inches from the\u00a0Biblioteca<\/span>\u2019s roofline.<\/p>\n

To a casual observer, it is evident that the City is not maintaining the building well.\u00a0 The same 2018 banner advertising the new\u00a0Misi\u00f3n<\/span>\u00a0Hills<\/span>-Hillcrest Branch\u00a0Biblioteca<\/span>\u00a0hangs on the stacked-brick facade, some windows are broken and boarded-up, trash is strewn behind the glass doors of the entryway, and graffiti that marred the brick has been covered with sickly yellow paint.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s ugly.\u00a0 It\u2019s an eyesore right now,\u201d says Ridout Stewart.<\/p>\n

Efforts at preserving the building have been made.\u00a0 In August 2019, the preservation advocacy group\u00a0Misi\u00f3n<\/span>\u00a0Hills<\/span>\u00a0Heritage filed a nomination to designate the\u00a0Biblioteca<\/span>\u00a0as a historic resource in recognition that the building is the only Mid-Century-Modern style building located in\u00a0Misi\u00f3n<\/span>\u00a0Hill\u2019s core business district.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The old\u00a0Misi\u00f3n<\/span>\u00a0Hills<\/span>\u00a0Biblioteca<\/span>\u00a0is] part of an important period of time that no longer exists,\u201d says Ron May, a registered professional archeologist of Legacy 106, who authored the nomination report.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019ll never have a building built like that again because the building standards don\u2019t allow these kinds of buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n

In September 2020, the City\u2019s Historic Resources Board agreed and designated the building, which the City owns, as a historic resource.<\/p>\n

Yet, the historical designation has not spurred City officials to bring a plan into focus.\u00a0 Instead, ever since then-Mayor Kevin Faulconer\u2019s \u201crequest for development\u201d to use the site for homeless housing was scrapped, City Officials have been evasive.<\/p>\n

For the last two years, and as recently as this year, the Director of the\u00a0Misi\u00f3n<\/span>\u00a0Hills<\/span>\u00a0Community Preschool, Anna DiMartino, has sought information from the City about the adaptive re-use of the building as a pre-school and possibly an after-school program.<\/p>\n

DiMartino has communicated with no less than six City officials (involved in the management of City-owned property) to determine whether the preschool could lease or buy the building, but after being \u201cshuffled around and shuffled around, . . . pretty much nothing happened.\u201d\u00a0 Despite DiMartino\u2019s efforts, it is the City\u2019s official position that \u201c[t]here currently is no application for any proposed project for the site.\u201d\u00a0 According to DiMartino, the City has never directed her to fill out an application.<\/p>\n

Complicating matters is the fact that\u00a0Misi\u00f3n<\/span>\u00a0Hills<\/span>\u00a0resident, Clint Daniels, filed an appeal in September 2020 contesting the\u00a0Biblioteca<\/span>\u2019s historical designation.\u00a0 While the San Diego City Council has resolved multiple other appeals of historical designations filed after Daniels\u2019 appeal, the City Council has left Daniels\u2019 appeal pending for over two years, casting a cloud of doubt over the building\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

Barry Hager,\u00a0Misi\u00f3n<\/span>\u00a0Hills<\/span>\u00a0Heritage co-founder and advisor, says that his organization has communicated with City Officials multiple times, requesting that the City \u201cprotect the building and also bring the appeal forward.\u201d\u00a0 These calls for action had largely gone unheeded until this February, when the City confirmed in an official statement that \u201cstaff is actively working on docketing the item for a City Council Hearing . . . anticipated to take place in late Spring 2023.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going forward, trying to divine the City\u2019s intentions for the building is like reading tea leaves.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s kind of a mystery now,\u201d says Hager.<\/p>\n

One possibility, recounted by May, is that the City, by ignoring the building, seeks to eventually condemn the property in order to circumvent the requirement that it maintain the building as a historic resource and pursue more aggressive development of the site.\u00a0 Termed \u201cdemolition by neglect,\u201d May opined that \u201cthe longer [the\u00a0Biblioteca<\/span>] just sits, the more likely it is to get condemned.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is more certain, is that the condition of the building should not affect the legal merits of the appeal.\u00a0 Hager warns, however, that as a \u201cpractical issue\u201d the building\u2019s deteriorated state could affect its future use: Any potential future users would have to take on the existing deferred maintenance.\u00a0 Indeed, although the preschool remains very \u201cinterested in exploring the possibility [of using the building,]\u201d DiMartino admits that the damage could impact the preschool\u2019s ability to do so.<\/p>\n

Whatever the City\u2019s plans, a majority of individuals favored saving the old branch\u00a0Biblioteca<\/span>\u00a0in a survey conducted by the\u00a0Misi\u00f3n<\/span>\u00a0Hills<\/span>\u00a0Business Improvement District in 2018.\u00a0 Hager acknowledges that the City\u2019s inaction has put this goal in jeopardy, but maintains that \u201c[i]t\u2019s always been our hope that the City would allow the building to be adaptively reused for the benefit of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

A contrary outcome involving loss of the structure, in the words of May, would sadly deny \u201cthe younger generations the ability to know the history of where they lived.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Jennifer Machian has a degree in Mass Communications from the University of Minnesota\u2019s Hubbard School of Journalism and is a\u00a0Misi\u00f3n<\/span>\u00a0Hills<\/span>\u00a0resident.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The old Mission\u00a0Hills\u00a0Branch\u00a0Library, February 2023. (Photo by Jennifer Machian) The old\u00a0Mission\u00a0Hills\u00a0Library\u00a0was once a vibrant community treasure.\u00a0 Located at the western entrance of\u00a0Mission\u00a0Hills, the\u00a0library\u00a0enticed patrons of all ages, with its shiny wall of windows and iconic cantilevered roof. Long-time\u00a0Mission\u00a0Hills\u00a0resident, Caroline Ridout Stewart, who frequented the\u00a0library\u00a0as a sixth grader in the 1960s, recalls the\u00a0library\u00a0warmly, as a recreational […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":837,"featured_media":320694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"3","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"1","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"1","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11552,11555],"tags":[15371,12679,15372],"class_list":["post-320692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-opinion","category-uptown-news","tag-historical-site","tag-mission-hills","tag-mission-hills-library"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/837"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320692"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":320695,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320692\/revisions\/320695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}