Levine Properties president Daniel Levine says the project has become too difficult to renovate profitably. He plans to salvage the materials and reassemble them on another uptown site or on Levine property in the CrownPoint area.

City leaders, however, feel the warehouse facility is worth saving because it represents buildings that lined uptown's railroad corridors in the early 20th century. The building was also being considered as a potential trolley stop on SeventhStreet. Extension of the two-mile line From South End through uptown is due to be completed in late summer 2001.

Levine Properties owns about 15 acres in First Ward, where it has preserved and converted nearly a dozen old buildings to new uses. He bought the warehouse in 1985.