{"id":46987,"date":"2021-05-04T19:53:42","date_gmt":"2021-05-05T01:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mason-center-demolished-after-70-years\/"},"modified":"2021-05-05T01:53:42","modified_gmt":"2021-05-05T01:53:42","slug":"mason-center-demolished-after-70-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mason-center-demolished-after-70-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Mason Center demolished after 70 years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Lee
Lee Petty, a city of Durango landscape architect, looks at his former office in the Mason Center. The city tore down the dilapidated, 70-year-old building in late April.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Durango\u2019s Mason Center has seen its last days.<\/p>\n

The city of Durango demolished the 70-year-old building last week, leaving only the gym to be used for city storage.<\/p>\n

At 15,300 square feet, the Mason Center previously housed a gymnastics program, elementary school and multiple education centers. The plot\u2019s playground is often used as a play space for schools, child care programs and church groups.<\/p>\n

But the building, at 301 E. 12th St., near the Smiley Building, was also deteriorating and insulated with asbestos. Talk of tearing it down heated up in 2019 when a portion of the center\u2019s roof collapsed because of heavy spring snow.<\/p>\n

Two wings filled with former classrooms were torn down, leaving more room for recreation, according to city officials.<\/p>\n

The tennis courts, playground and 14 parking spaces will remain, and a portion of the parking lot will become a grassy area. The city will also install topsoil, irrigation and turf grass seed to improve the park\u2019s landscaping.<\/p>\n

smullane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Two
Two wings of the Mason Center building were removed, but its gym will remain.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The Mason Center, at 301 E. 12th Street, housed gymnastics, educational and other programs before it fell into disrepair.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"After
After removing the building, the city of Durango will add landscaping improvements, retain the playground and tennis courts, and turn a portion of the parking lot into a grassy area.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Durango plans landscaping improvements<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[507],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-46987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-durango-city-officials"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46987"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=46987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}