The elevator stays

The 1954 concrete grain elevator at the south end of the yard is the tallest thing in Hollins Bench and the first thing anyone uses to give directions. When we bought the rail yard in 2023, the question we were asked most was whether it would come down. It will not.

The structure was surveyed twice. The silos are sound, the headhouse needs a new roof, and the whole thing needs the kind of cleaning you do with a crew on ropes. That work starts after the Corner site work in 2027, because the Corner buildings sit closest to it and we would rather not clean it twice.

What it becomes is simpler than the renderings people send us. The ground floor opens as a covered market hall for the residents and the town, with the river path running through it. The headhouse gets lit at night, once, from inside, so it reads from the bluff road. Nothing is built on top of it and nothing is bolted to it that was not there in 1954.

Every plan on the yard with a south exposure sees it. The Townhome roof terraces on the Mews were drawn around it.