(Photo: Placebo leader Brian Molko sings before the iconic towers of Angkor Wat. 7 December 2008. By Isabelle Roughol)

By Isabelle Roughol

Angkor, Siem Reap province — One thousand had tickets but many more showed up Sunday night in Siem Reap, hoping to get a glimpse and an earful of the first ever rock concert to be held at the ancient temples of Angkor.

The event, organized by MTV and USAID to raise awareness about human trafficking, featured Cambodian and international artists, ending on a 40-minute set by British alternative trio Placebo, arguably the biggest rock band to have ever played in Cambodia.

Before the concert, packed tuk-tuks filed into Angkor National Park while ticket-less music fans were seen begging bouncers to let them in.

“I have lived here three years. I have never seen this…. It’s a major event, you can’t miss it,” said Sabien Lesecq, an expatriate concertgoer who was, like many others, excited to see Placebo perform.

But Cambodian youths seemed more enthusiastic about seeing the American band The Click Five.

“I’m so excited, it’s a big concert in Cambodia,” said Borin You, 20, who was attending his first rock concert.

Messages from the artists, speeches and videos were to be presented between performances and volunteers canvassing the crowd educated the audience on human trafficking issues.

“The fact that you have so many people in one spot at one time is fairly unique in Cambodia. I think that shows the message is getting across,” said Steve Morrish, executive director of SISHA, an anti-trafficking NGO associated with the event.

The goal of the concert is to educate people on how not to get into situations where they could be trafficked, for instance by thoroughly researching offers to work abroad, and to remove the stigma put on victims of trafficking, Morrish said. The Cambodian government has grown more aware and more proactive in fighting human trafficking, but the country’s growing openness to the world also brings in more traffickers and more sex tourists, he added.

The Angkor Wat concert, the third of four in the MTV Exit tour, stands out as the most intimate because the setting of the fragile temples forced organizers to limit the size of the audience.

Around 1,000 free tickets were distributed for the Angkor Wat show to populations vulnerable to human trafficking selected by NGOS and universities, and also via lottery, MTV Exit campaign director Simon Goff said. By contrast, there were in previous concerts 30,000 listeners in Kompong Cham and 10,000 in Sihanoukville. For those who couldn’t make it to the concerts, excerpts will be shown in a 90-minute program to be shown on Bayon TV later this month.

The smaller scale of the show and sacred surroundings inspired the artists to rethink their music.

“I’ve chosen songs that are more appropriate for a temple, so there’s no swearing or anything like that,” said Australian singer Kate Miller-Heidke. She rearranged her usual pop to an acoustic sound, including a surprising cover of Britney Spears’ “Toxic.”

Cambodian artist Pou Khlaing chose not to adapt the volume, but the message to the audience, choosing to emphasize Khmer culture and the empowerment of the Cambodian people. In “Save The Khmer Music,” he pleads for Cambodian musicians to write original music rather than translate foreign hits.

“We have everything. We have our own language, we have our own culture, beautiful Angkor and everything. We don’t use it,” Pou Khlaing said.

But Placebo perhaps put in the most work in picking their setlist, spending hours in the studio to strip their classic songs to the bare bones of melody and reinventing the instrumentation.

“We’ve kind of created a new sound for us specifically for this performance. It may not be repeated. We love noise; we love massive, massive walls of sound, three guitars going crazy. We didn’t think this was going to be appropriate for this,” said Placebo lead singer Brian Molko.

Though Placebo will not be playing, massive walls of sounds will most likely be heard Friday when the tour culminates in front of an expected 50,000-strong crowd at Olympic Stadium in Phnom Penh.

“The Phnom Penh show is a completely different set, completely different show,” said The Click Five drummer Joey Zehr. “I think it’s nice to give two different experiences in Cambodia.”

(Photo: The White Building in Phnom Penh. Designed as a model of modern, middle-income housing by Vann Molyvann in the 1960s, the decrepit building is now the symbol of the country’s urban ruin. 22 August 2008. By Isabelle Roughol.)

By Isabelle Roughol

It’s been two years since Vann Molyvann last stood here. He doesn’t like to see his masterpiece “because of all this,” he says, pointing with an air of disdain to a non-descript concrete box building standing on what should have been the 40-hectare, green grounds around the Olympic stadium. Now that much of the land has been sold off and built on, Vann Molyvann feels his vision for the sports complex, which he built in 1963 and 1964, has been compromised. So he stays away.

Narrating a tour of Phnom Penh organized by the French Cultural Center on Sunday, Vann Molyvann—the figurehead of the New Khmer Architecture movement of the 1960s—expressed deep concern for the state of urban development and the future of the capital.

“I am very worried. Look at the catastrophe that is happening here,” he says looking around the stadium grounds. “It is in danger of disappearing—this stadium,” adding the land there could go for $1000 per square meter.

Asked if he thinks the stadium could be razed to make way for development, he adds, “They are capable of destroying everything.”

Yet , while in the stands overlooking the football field, he points—with the knowing smile of a man who has seen what is now history—to the spot where General Charles de Gaulle made his 1966 Phnom Penh speech. He reminisces about the buffalo carts that carried the earth to build the stadium mount and the shaky introduction of motor vehicles. (A man flipped a construction truck into a pond and had to leap out “like a frog.”)

At every one of his works on the circuit—the Foreign Language Institute, the Olympic stadium, the Chaktomuk Theater and the Senate—he speaks with pride of his creations.

“He is someone who is fascinated and fascinating,” said Alain Arnaudet, director of the French Cultural Center, by telephone Friday. “It is rare to have the chance to bring together in the same place an architect and his work.“

The rarity of the occasion wasn’t lost on many: When the two planned busses quickly filled, Vann Molyvann enthusiasts took to motos and tuk-tuks, forming a motorcade of sorts for the 81-year-old architect.

“Vann Molyvann is my superstar,” said Yam Sok Ly, a 24-year-old architecture student at the Royal University of Fine Arts who found a seat on a bus. “It’s not because he is famous; it’s because of his ideas,” he said, adding he was inspired by Vann Molyvann’s use of natural ventilation and hoped to create “a building that’s really suitable for Cambodia, not a building that’s suitable for air con.”

But in most of the buildings shown, natural ventilations had been cut off with glass windows and open spaces filled up with more construction. At the Foreign Language Institute, for instance, Vann Molyvann had designed science labs with openings in the ceiling to shine natural light on each lab bench. With the room transformed into a language classroom, the architect’s choice now makes little sense.

With humor, Vann Molyvann apologizes for such modifications. He laughs off the destruction of his building for the Presidency of the Council of Ministers—“Here is the New Khmer Architecture,” he said jokingly, pointing to the glass structure of the new, Chinese-made building.

But his smile fades when the conversation invariably returns to the current evolution of the capital.

“Everywhere [in the world] you have parks that are not sacrificed to build Chinese blocks. That doesn’t exist in civilized countries,” he says of the filling of Boeng Kak lake.  “Internationally, there is absolutely no government that expropriates land to serve private interests.”

Things could be different, Vann Molyvann argues. In the doctoral thesis he recently defended at a Paris university and that he is making into a book, Vann Molyvann presents a development plan for Phnom Penh, Siem Reap-Angkor and Sihanoukville that centers on water: irrigation, potable water distribution, flood control and the development of coherent cities around their water points. (Vann Molyvann will present this thesis at a lecture in French and Khmer at 6.30 pm Thursday at the French Cultural Center.)

“We tried, for the city of Phnom Penh in particular, to develop normally with an urban plan…. We thought we were going toward a strong democratization of Cambodia,” he says of the early 1990s, when he returned from exile and helped draft building and zoning codes that could improve and preserve capital. But, “there’s no political will to enforce them.” 

By Isabelle Roughol
Santa Cruz Sentinel correspondent

WATSONVILLE, Calif. — Hanging on the wall in Jack’s Cigar Store is a 1970s photo of the shop’s founder, Jack Novcich, standing in the doorway of his store’s original location.

Back then, the smoking room was the only thing standing between the Democratic and Republican headquarters on Main Street.

Today, Jack’s Cigar Store still has a Main Street address: 446A Main St. But that A makes all the difference: the store now occupies what used to be its garage.

“Big businesses start in a garage and grow big,” said current owner Zarko Radich. “Mine ended up in one.”

Like other tobacconists across the nation, Radich suffers from tobacco having fallen out of the public’s favor. Rising awareness of the health dangers of tobacco means fewer people push the door of the nearly centennial store, and the business is dying its slow death.

“When I came [to the United States], you had to whisper for condoms and could yell for cigarettes,” Radich said. “Now you have to whisper for cigarettes.”

Radich has no estimates of how much business he’s lost, just a general feeling of changing times. “I used to call companies every morning and beg them for cigars,” he said. “Now they call me.”

Novcich moved to the United States from Serbia in 1906 and opened his tobacco store in Watsonville in 1914. He worked there from the early days of World War I to the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Radich married Novcich’s niece and became a partner in the store when he moved to Watsonville, from Serbia too, in 1980.

Radich, 59, agreed that “there’s nothing good to say about smoking,” as a customer walked into the store with an oxygen tank strapped around his waist, as though to stress his point.

“Even when I was a heavy smoker, I never was pro-smoking. I’d never recommend it to anyone,” Radich said. “If you really want to smoke, I’ll recommend a better cigar and less poison.”

So Radich isn’t particularly bitter that none of his three sons, the last one recently out of college, will take over the business. Radich said he is bitter, however, that tobacconists seem to be the sole targets of the public’s discontent. He often jokes that he really works as a tax collector for the state of California.

In California, each pack of cigarettes is taxed 87 cents, and other tobacco products are taxed at 46.76 percent.

Since the late 1990s, a trend of tobacco tax increases, in California and nationwide, and smoking bans in many public areas have decreased the use of cigarettes, said Charles Ganigan, president of the California Association of Retail Tobacconists. But the sales of other products such as premium cigars, small cigars, hookahs and smokeless tobacco have increased modestly, he said.

“It is a challenging business for the future, and it’s one that requires the most adept business acumen in order to survive,” Ganigan said.

Tobacconists also must deal with the competition of online stores, which many consumers turn to to evade California taxes. Retailers that survive, Ganigan said, are those who can adapt the products they carry to the demands of more educated consumers.

Jack’s Cigar Store still has customers of two kinds, Radich said. There are those who want to buy cheaper tobacco, and those who, like Bob Steinberg of Aptos, say that “you don’t smoke a cigar, you have a relationship with it,” and shop in Radich’s wall-to-wall collection of Arturo Fuente, Cohiba or Avo cigars.

Radich also has modified the original business plan and makes up the losses in tobacco sales by selling sandwiches and drinks. He said he hopes to keep the store open until its centennial, in 2014, but said he doubts anyone will want to buy it when he retires.

“This little by little becomes the wrong business.”

(Photo: The altar of the church of Notre Dame in Montreal, Canada. March 2008. By Isabelle Roughol)

This is a two-part story. Read part 1 here.

By ISABELLE ROUGHOL
Columbia Missourian

The Rev. Thomas Saucier, O.P., does not simply stand at the altar when delivering his Sunday homily at Columbia’s St. Thomas More Newman Center. Instead, he walks up and down the chapel’s aisles, addresses his parishioners and makes them laugh while teaching a lesson on God’s generosity.

“His sermons are definitely very different,” said Amanda Gramlich, a junior at MU and a parishioner of two years. “I find myself paying more attention.”

Saucier’s love of teaching is a common characteristic of Dominican friars. He is one of four such friars who started their ministry on July 1 as priests at the Newman Center and Sacred Heart Catholic Church. The Dominicans replaced three diocesan priests — the Rev. Charles Pardee, the Rev. Mark Smith and the Rev. Edwin Cole — who were transferred to other parishes in mid-Missouri.

The Rev. Joachim Culotta, O.P., explained that the initials placed after his name stand for “Order of Preachers.” To him, the initials are as important as the title of reverend.

The friars are Dominicans who happen to be priests. Many Dominican friars are never ordained as priests and are only brothers.

“Priesthood is a vocation; being a Dominican is a life,” Saucier said. “You’re embracing more than a profession. From the time I get up until the time I go to bed, I live my Dominican life.”

The Order of Preachers, or Dominicans, was founded by St. Dominic de Guzman, a canon from Spanish nobility, in the 13th century. While traveling in the south of France, St. Dominic witnessed the influence of the Albigenses, a Christian sect whose teachings he believed were a heresy.

The Order of Preachers was thus created to advocate and educate people about the Catholic faith. Only a few years after creating the order, St. Dominic sent his friars to study and preach in Europe’s leading universities.

Today, Dominican friars are still erudite, and their main occupation is teaching.

“The Dominicans have a long tradition of study and involvement in the intellectual life,” said the Very Rev. Michael Mascari, prior provincial for the Province of St. Albert the Great, which covers the Central U.S. “We, as priests, feel we have something we can contribute to university life.”

Two years ago, Mascari sent offers to several bishops to take over Newman Centers in their dioceses, in an effort to refocus the order’s mission on campus ministry.

The Diocese of Jefferson City was interested in the offer, because it freed up three priests to serve in other parishes, said the Rev. Greg Higley, vicar general of the diocese.

“We knew we were going to get experienced priests who were used to being around college students and also families,” Higley said. “It just seemed like a good fit.”

The Dominicans also took over Sacred Heart and gave the parish a second priest. The Rev. Steve Kuhlmann, O.P., is assisted by the Rev. Thomas Paulsen, O.P.

The four priests live together in a house adjacent to Sacred Heart and established a religious community named St. Raymond of Peñaforte.

Culotta, the oldest, is its religious superior.

“As Dominican priests, we live a community life,” Culotta said. “We are a family.”

The friars’ common life can serve as a model of Catholic living for parishioners, he said. The priests pray together every day after the 7.30 a.m. Mass and are sometimes joined by parishioners.

The priests said they hoped the parishioners might someday form a Dominican laity chapter, but they don’t have immediate plans to create one.

“Once they get to know us a little more, they’ll form it themselves,” Saucier said.

The Dominican friars are hard to miss. Their dress consists of a white habit of their order.

“It’s a way of showing that there’s a difference here,” Saucier said. “The habit can be an important symbol, especially in the classroom, when Father walks in with his rosary beads and his white habit. You’ll be seeing that a lot, initially anyway.”

But the habit isn’t worn everywhere and doesn’t prevent individuality from showing either: Under its long sleeves, Saucier, an avid bicyclist, also wears a yellow “live strong” bracelet.

But the most important function of the habit is to simply show that Saucier, Culotta, Kuhlmann and Paulsen are not only priests, they’re Dominicans.

A Dominican life is a search for the truth, which can be found in science, physics, literature, art and other studies, Saucier said.

“The essence of what God is comes through in all those things,” he said.

One particular study awaiting Kuhlmann and Paulsen is the Spanish language.

Sacred Heart’s weekly Spanish Mass is attended by about 90 people; even though it is not the greatest number of parishioners, it is the only such Mass in the area and is growing quickly.

Every Sunday at 1 p.m., Kuhlmann reads off a Spanish church book, with a distinct American accent. His last Spanish class was in the spring of 1981, when he was a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

At his first Spanish Mass, Kuhlmann introduced himself in Spanish and then asked parishioners to have patience with his language skills. By the fifth Mass, he was getting compliments on his progress.

“They’re also very gracious,” Kuhlmann said. “It’ll take time, but I’ll get there.”

At the Newman Center, the priests now prepare for the return of students.

Culotta had to adjust his sleeping habits to be present at the 9 p.m. Sunday Mass, mostly attended by students. The first college Mass will be held Aug. 20 on MU’s South Quad, following a barbecue.

Another challenge for the priests will be to serve both the Newman Center’s students and regular parishioners. Saucier said he hopes he can grab students’ attention at the beginning of the semester, before the demands and distractions of college life take over. He would also like to plug students into the daily life of the parish as much as possible.

“If it’s two separate communities, I’m sort of doomed from the beginning,” he said.

As the school year progresses, Saucier would like to see more intellectual and ethical discussions among the Newman Center, the university community and churches outside the Catholic faith.

“This is where we believe, as Dominicans, we belong,” Culotta said.

(Photo: Devotion to the Agnus Dei in the church of Notre Dame in Montreal, Canada. March 2008. By Isabelle Roughol)

This is a two-part story. Read part 2 here.

By ISABELLE ROUGHOL

The Rev. Edwin Cole strolls through the church’s aisles greeting parishioners as he has done for the last 10 years.

But for Cole, the Rev. Charles Pardee and the Rev. Mark Smith, all priests, it will be their last Sunday Mass in Columbia.

“I’ve been telling myself all morning to keep taking deep breaths,” Cole tells the Sacred Heart Catholic Church congregation as he begins his early morning Mass. “I’m still taking deep breaths.”

Three blocks away, Pardee and Smith say goodbye to their parishioners at St. Thomas More Newman Center.

The three departing priests were relocated to other parishes by the diocese of Jefferson City and will be replaced by four friars from the Order of Preachers, better known as the Dominicans.

The changing of the guard reflects a national trend in which the Catholic Church finds recruiting new priests more difficult.

Since 1965, the ratio of Catholics to priests has risen from 778 followers to one priest to 1,513 followers to one priest, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

The reshuffling came after the Very Rev. Michael Mascari, the superior of the order’s Province of St. Albert the Great, offered his order’s help in staffing to the bishops of several dioceses.

Parishioners welcome the new friars but are sad to see the priests leave.

Cole’s homily ended in a standing ovation and the Mass with tears from several parishioners.

“I just think he’s a really good person, and that came through in his ministry to each and every member of this parish,” said Joe Camille, a parishioner of six years . “If you had a model of what a priest should be like, he’s it.”

Cole started his ministry at Sacred Heart in 1996 and spent 17 years in Columbia. He has also been ministering to patients in Columbia hospitals.

Cole said he will miss the aliveness of the Sacred Heart community, but he is looking forward to the slower pace of his new parish of 400 families in Laurie, by the Lake of the Ozarks.

Cole said he has worn a hospital pager five days a week, 24 hours a day for 15 years.

“I turned it off this morning,” he said. “The slower pace will give me more time to practice music.”

Saying goodbye was difficult at the Newman Center , too. Pardee and Smith’s last Sunday in town was celebrated with a barbecue that saw about 200 people take over the center’s parking lot.

“It just shows how much they’re loved, how many people showed up,” said Rebecca Rone, a recent MU graduate. “I don’t think you can put into words how much they’ve affected the students here on campus.”

Pardee arrived at the Newman Center in 1998 and was joined by Smith in 2000. Their assignment was relatively short compared to that of the Rev. Mike Quinn, who spent 21 years at the Newman Center.

“I would be happy to stay another eight or fifteen years, but I can’t be greedy, I’ve had my time here,” Pardee said.

Pardee will serve the Catholic communities in Loose Creek and Bonnots Mill in Osage County, and Smith will minister in Martinsburg and Wellsville, on both sides of the Audrain-Montgomery county line.

Pardee and Smith are credited with getting the Newman Center out of crippling debt.

“Father Charlie brought the community together, and it helps that he’s a very sharp business person,” said Dick Otto, a parishioner of 35 years.

Replacing Pardee and Smith will be two Dominican friars; the Rev. Thomas Saucier will serve as the new pastor, and the Rev. Joachim Culotta will serve as an associate pastor.

The Rev. Steven Kuhlmann and the Rev. Thomas Paulsen were introduced to the Sacred Heart community Sunday as their new pastor and associate pastor, respectively.

Cole said he is glad that Sacred Heart, a parish of 700 families, will now have two priests instead of one.

“I very much support the move,” Cole said. “The Dominicans are a great addition” to the diocese.

Founded in the 13th century, the Dominican order’s mission is to preach in universities, and it has sought to re-establish that ministry in recent years, Mascari said.

The four Dominican friars will add to the diocese’s 70 priests, who serve in 95 parishes and 15 missions, said the Rev. Greg Higley, vicar general of the diocese of Jefferson City

“We’re not as bad off as other dioceses are, but we are in no way near capacity,” Higley said. “We will ordain two priests this year, one in July and one in December, but after that we will have some lean years.”

LaRue Diehl contributed to this report.

(Photo: Construction workers demolish the concrete canopy over Broadway in Columbia, Mo. 20 June 2006. By Anne Breitwieser/Columbia Missourian)

By ISABELLE ROUGHOL
Columbia Missourian

The sky is the indigo color of an early morning, half an hour before sunrise. The blinking red of traffic lights reflects off the wet pavement on the deserted streets. It’s 5:11 a.m.: Bar hoppers have gone home and commuters are not yet out, but at the intersection of Broadway and Tenth Street, Mike McMahan and his three- man team are already tearing off the insulation board and rubber roofing atop the cement canopy that extends from the corner parking lot to Buchroeder’s Jewelers.

McMahan’s team works early in the day so as not to disrupt traffic and business.

“We gotta be cleaned up out here by about 11, so they can keep doing business,” he said.

At 8:45 a.m., sparks fly on the sidewalk , and a worker uses a jackhammer to detach 20-foot sections of the canopy roof. Motorists drive around McMahan’s forklift while he removes sections of cement and deposits them on the pavement.

“It’s a lot easier to take down than to put in,” he said. According to a tentative schedule, the razing should last until Aug. 11, but McMahan says his team is ahead of schedule.

Across the street, Amanda Vander Tuig and her 2-year-old daughter, EllaWyn, look on in awe.

“I’m really excited,” Vander Tuig said. “It feels good, it’s like a new beginning.”

Vander Tuig, owner of The Butterfly Tattoo on Broadway, said she is looking forward to seeing the facades and shops with more personality.

The workers packed up a little before 11 a.m., and the workday started for the five businesses underneath the canopy. But with cement blocks obstructing the parking spots and the sidewalk taped off, business has been a little slow.

Lita Harvey and Paul Blackwell, owners of Classy’s restaurant, said they oppose the project because it disrupts their business.

“It’s another way of wasting money,” Blackwell said. “The canopy is definitely ugly, but it’s also definitely practical.”

George Wren, owner of Wren’s Birkenstock, is also losing business but said he didn’t mind because he thought the canopy was unsightly and outdated.

By morning’s end, five out of 11 sections of the cement canopy had been taken down, and passers-by could get their first look in a long time at Wren’s ornamental facade.

“I didn’t know it looked like that until this morning,” Wren said.

(Photo: Les Grands Moulins, an abandoned factory listed as national heritage, in Marquette, in the old industrial north of France. September 2009. By Isabelle Roughol)

By ISABELLE ROUGHOL

Columbia Missourian

Walnut saplings grow through the concrete ramp on the west side, and pigeons fly under what is left of the roof on the north end. The floor is covered with dust, posters advertising Angus beef and occasional animal droppings. Windows are bricked in, broken or both. Boxes of salami packaging and rolls of barcode stickers clutter the upper level.

Welcome to one of Columbia’s trendiest buildings.

The Diggs Packing Co. building, at the northwest corner of Hinkson Avenue and Fay Street, was built in 1922 in the utilitarian, industrial architectural style of the time: rectangular shape and plain red bricks. In 1930, W.E. Rader and Thomas Diggs leased part of the building to host their newly founded meatpacking business. For the next 75 years, the factory became inextricably tied to the Diggs family and the meat industry.

But the Diggs family’s meatpacking activities ceased in 2005. The following winter, the roof collapsed, taking most of the north outside wall with it.

Owners Dale and Audrey Diggs sold the building to architect Brian Pape.

Pape said he thinks the Diggs took his offer because he wanted to preserve the building’s historic features. Most other developers who see a building in such poor condition only think about tearing it down, he said.

“To me, it doesn’t make much sense to restore an old building in this condition if it’s not going to be preserved historically,” Pape said. “It’s my passion to save old buildings and to see the intrinsic value in the old.”

Even though the building was constructed for utilitarian purposes, it shows good craftsmanship, especially in the masonry detailing on the exterior walls, Pape said.

“For an industrial building, today, you wouldn’t have any of this detail,” he said.

Pape said he also intends to preserve the timber-post-and-beam structure of the building wherever possible and would like to keep the heavy, vault-style doors of the former coolers.

“I’m going to keep the pack ing plant theme,” Pape said. “It’s always going to be the Diggs building.”

Pape wants to rezone the property from M-1, general industrial, to C-2, central business, and to apply a historic overlay district to ensure preservation requirements are met.

At a public hearing May 18, the Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously recommended approval of the rezoning. The Historic Preservation Commission also recommended approval. Pape, who is chairman of the commission, recused himself for the vote. The City Council will hold another public hearing and is scheduled to vote on the rezoning tonight.

Dale Diggs said he approved of the redevelopment but declined to comment further. He said at the May 18 hearing that he’s happy the building will be renovated and that his family’s history there will be remembered.

The rezoning would allow Pape to go ahead with plans to transform the old factory into a residential, office and commercial complex.

It takes some imagination to picture the run-down building as a Columbia landmark, complete with businesses, a café and rooftop terraces, which is why Pape has avoided showing it too much before work has begun. The renovation will cost about $4 million, Pape said, and should be done next year. He expects the rent to be $1 per square foot.

Pape’s plans include eight loft apartments on the north side; two of them will have two stories, Pape said.

“The apartments will be all-new except for the posts and beams we can

save,” he said.

The south side of the building will be devoted to business and office use. Pape said he hopes to attract artists. The former slaughter area will become a large art studio, and the large cattle-holding room will be turned into a performing center.

Pape’s main tenant is The Warehouse Studios, a non profit organization that seeks to provide affordable studio space for local artists.

“Everybody can benefit from having all the different types of use in one building,” said Stephanie Lyons, executive director of The Warehouse Studios. Lyons said she hopes the circulation of residents and workers will increase publicity, and thus revenue, for the artists.

All involved said they hope the redevelopment will not only help the artists but also the entire neighborhood.

The North Central Columbia Neighborhood Association has been working on reviving the neighborhood, preserving its history and creating an artists village.

“Mr. Pape’s plan exactly coincides with our vision for the area,” association president Linda Rootes said. “Historically, there were houses in this area in addition to the packing plant and other commercial buildings, and all the houses in this area have disappeared.”

Pape said the main advantage of mixing residential with commercial use is that the building will be occupied at all hours.

“It brings 24-hour liveliness,” he said. “I felt it was very important to bring residents back in the neighborhood who would be invested in the area.”

Rootes said the Diggs building could become an anchor for the neighborhood, along with the Hamilton Brown shoe factory, which is now known as the Atkins Building.

“We were very concerned that the Diggs building was going to be destroyed after it was vacated,” Rootes said, “It’s a real icon for the neighborhood, and the redevelopment of the area would have been changed if that building had been lost.”

PUBLIC HEARING

The Diggs building proposal is the fourth public hearing on the agenda of the Columbia City Council tonight. Its meeting starts at 7 at the Daniel Boone Building, 701 E. Broadway.

DIGGS BUILDING AT A GLANCE

Name: Diggs Packing Co. Building

Location: Northwest corner of Hinkson Avenue and Fay Street

Construction date: 1922

Builders: Bill and Pleas Wright

Architectural style: 1920s utilitarian architecture

TIMELINE

1930: W.E. Rader and Thomas Diggs lease part of the building to establish Rader Packing Co.

1937: Diggs and his wife, Minnie Rader Diggs, buy the building and, in subsequent years, rent two-thirds of it to other meat businesses.

1940: Diggs builds four homes on Hinkson Avenue, south of the plant. His family lives in one of them.

1953: The meatpacking company takes over the entire building.

1963: A 20-year renovation program begins to modernize plumbing, wiring and equipment. Some windows are also bricked in and the exterior slightly altered. The program does not follow historic preservation guidelines.

1970: The company changes its name to Diggs Packing Co.

2005: The Diggs family ends its meatpacking business. In the winter, the roof collapses on the north side.

2006: Brian Pape buys the building from Dale and Audrey Diggs.

2007: Pape says he hopes to complete renovations and open the building to tenants.