A few days ago, a vacant but historic downtown building was demolished because it had been allowed to deteriorate so much that it was a danger to the public and could collapse.
Now, you may assume that 4 E-Comm Square was victimized by another neglectful out-of-town owner, the kind that doesn’t care about Albany’s history or future, the type responsible for so many of the X-placard marked vacancies around town.
Instead, the owner is Capitalize Albany Corp., the city’s economic development arm, which acquired the building in 2019 and utterly failed to, you know, keep the place standing. Capitalize Albany essentially was just another slumlord, making the loss of the once-handsome structure built in the 1840s an example of either staggering governmental incompetence or mind-blowing indifference…