Knocking down old buildings to make way for new ones seemed like a great idea 40 years ago when Bangor jumped into urban renewal. Turned out, however, that some of those old buildings held the city’s character, and when they were carted off to the landfill, the character went with them.

Bangor’s learned a lot since then. It has learned that the way the city presents its history is important. It has learned that old buildings can be renovated and made useful again. It has learned not to give up on a property because a structure needs major work; that what replaces it might be worse. It has learned that, when it comes to buildings, beauty fades but ugly is a burden forever.

So when the City Council takes up the question tonight of whether to allow developers of a Rite Aid to knock down a dozen old buildings at the busy corner of Hammond and Union streets and replace them mostly with pavement and a 11,000-square-foot superstore, it needs to review what the city already knows about such projects.

One thing the council knows for certain is that the city has several more appropriate places than a residential area for this large development. The city has a comprehensive plan that is supposed to direct commercial development to some areas and retrict it in others. Certainly, exemptions to the plan ought to be granted under extremely unusual conditions. The council will have to decide whether the request from Rite Aid has circumstances special enough to warrent this.

The area that Rite Aid would like to develop has seen better days — better decades, in fact. Some structures on the site have been abandoned and boarded up, and could become a headache for the city. It might be tempting to have someone else to remove them. The developers of the project, Union Realty Trust, are offering top dollar for the structures and have tried to answer city concerns about the development. For instance, they have agreed to limit what sort of development would be allowed on the site should Rite Aid ever leave — serving or consuming alcoholic beverages would be prohibited, as would the sale of motor vehicle fuel. That means no bars or gas stations. But here is something else they also would restrict if the Rite Aid is built: homes. Retail areas don’t revert to residential spaces, and it is not clear yet that Bangor is ready to cede this portion of its neighborhoods for this project.

City councilors have a tough decision. Sometimes it make sense to knock down the old to make way for a more useful new. But sometimes the old suffers more from neglect than a lack of usefulness, and the answer isn’t to wipe it out but find ways to help it become revived. If the wrecking ball is allowed to swing through, however, that would be impossible.