QUOTE(Keller Pirate @ Jun 28 2007, 06:21 AM) 
QUOTE(AndyN @ Jun 27 2007, 11:45 PM)
A good example of this is the fact that the owners of the Katy Freight Building thought that they had the unrestricted right to demolish a historically designated property without regard to the historic designation. As a result of their blatant disregard for the procedures, they are currently dealing with the City of Dallas in court.
This is the building I was refering to. I heard or read that the city of Dallas told the developer to rebuild, which was one of the options under the preservation code. The owners took the city to court and I heard they won, city lost. I'll have to surf the net again looking for a reference to the Katy to see if I can find something.
From Dallas Morning News April 2007:
A concrete slab and piles of rubble remain at the former location of the Kansas-Missouri-Texas Railroad Depot along Houston Street near the West End District in downtown Dallas. But behind the scenes, the legal fight over the demolition of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad depot lurches along in the run-up to the trial for the city of Dallas' lawsuit against property owner TCI West End Inc. and demolition contractor Weir Industries.
One of those pretrial developments drastically alters what the city hoped would happen to the three-acre parcel at 302 N. Houston St. – a new depot building, as close to identical to its predecessor as possible.
"The trial judge [Jim Jordan] has granted the property owner's summary judgment motion in part and dismissed our claims for an injunction requiring reconstruction of the building," said Chris Bowers, chief of litigation for the Dallas city attorney's office.
The rest of the city's lawsuit remains in place, Mr. Bowers said. And since the lawsuit was filed 11 months ago, Dallas has gained a co-plaintiff, the Texas Historical Commission.
The depot, built about 1925, was largely demolished over the weekend of April 29, 2006. The city maintains that demolition of the sprawling, single-story red brick depot took place without a proper permit and without the permission of the city's Landmark Commission and City Council – necessities for demolishing buildings in the West End Historic District.
The only permit issued for demolition work on the property, the city said, was for a small 1970s addition covering 500 square feet, and that permit was revoked a week before the work took place.
Al Weir of Weir Industries told The Dallas Morning News last year that his company had a permit.
"The one I have is to demolish the building and clear the lot," he said.
At that time, he blamed any problems on "some ambiguity between the city and Transcontinental," which lists the same address as TCI West End and conveyed the depot property to TCI West End in March 2006.
That permit is at the center of the lawsuit, scheduled to go to trial in a Dallas district court on Aug. 6.
