Recently, crews made short work out of tearing down a 103 year old building in Mesa to help make way for a portion of the current light rail extension.
After more than six decades as a grocery store, the old building on the north east corner of Main and Mesa Drive was the home of Wilky’s Performance Center since 1974. Both were run by members of the Wong family.
Old bows to New:
You’ll always have two sides to every story. For this story, we’ll have historic preservationists that may shed a tear for a lost piece of history, and we’ll have people that are happy to see this part of town begin to see new life.
The Mesa light rail extension is certainly on the fast track to completion at this point. Downtown Mesa is going to see many more changes because of light rail, and they’ll soon be welcoming many new people to this part of town. Most of the people that ride the train by this corner will have never even heard of Wilky’s Performance Center or of the old Sun Valley Market.
103 Years:
As the family gathered with a few news crews to watch the demolition of their building, Mr. Wong said “it’s just a feeling of loss.” While the historical loss to his family and to the city of Mesa may seem significant, we hope the $1.88 million they were paid for their property will help ease the pain.
As the future site of a new park and ride lot and the next end of the line, there will certainly be a lot of people coming to this area. They’ll find a mix of old buildings, new construction, a large park and more history of Mesa that will be around for decades. One old building is taken down and others are being built. That’s progress, right?
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