Progreso, Yucatán — A federal judge has sided with historic preservationists in what has amounted to a landmark ruling for the state.
Normally, when a historic property is illegally torn down, the historic protection agency INAH files a complaint and at most, fines are paid.
But when the convenience store chain Oxxo tore down this 117-year-old Casa Escalante to build a corner store, a federal judge issued a landmark ruling. Oxxo will be forced to rebuild a replica of this house.
The house, at Calle 76 and 27, was one of the first properties built in this port town. Oxxo leveled it in 2014, which INAH declared a criminal act.
The lawsuit was batted around in federal court for a little over a year.
The judge’s order to rebuild the home as it previously appeared was until yesterday unheard of in Yucatán, the local newspapers report.
Casa Escalante was the port city’s first shipping and customs agency, José Gabriel Escalante y Sucres, and remained in the hands that family’s heirs until 2014 when they sold the property to Oxxo.
