Is the Selmer Building an asset or a liability? Depends on your view.

If you simply look at that site, not quite an oval and think of the entirety, you may view that with or without the Selmer.

In the case of without, many do want new structures.

In the case of with, we do have a heritage here.

If the offices and other activities are housed in a single level structure on the right side looking from the river and the new visitor’s center on the left, attached to the Selmer, perhaps you can have it all.

We saw here, in the case of Paneltech and the New Wood, these composite structures that can be used to shore up walls, used on the interior.

If Selmer is left standing and not occupied, perhaps you can locate a mobile inside, at the center, with accompanying LED lights. It would rise high above and be a light-weight material, like what they use in electric vehicles.

The exterior can be then covered in solar to match that Tesla electric charging station across the street and maybe the new attached interior walls can be a canvas.

Four walls, each one for a season and of course use LED to heighten that experience.

This way you may have Tesla co-founder Elon Musk involved. Perhaps he helps with a grant for an all inclusive design.

This way you save the Selmer. You have an unattached nearby office facility. And use the original design proposed by Bob Ford, a local architect, for the center where it is part of that Selmer, not instead of it.

Edward D. Perrotti

Aberdeen