Located near the edge of the NGA site, would the city consider letting the historic building remain? Williams said there’s no chance.

"We’re 100 percent certain the building can’t stay," he said. "We had conversations with the NGA over a year ago and it doesn’t work on the site."

Instead Osher wants to pick up the 85,000-square-foot building, move it across the street and turn it into a shoe-themed hotel.

He’s got two companies that say they can do it by either moving it on railroad tracks or on wheels. The cost? Somewhere in the $5 million range, or as Osher puts it, "A tenth of what it would cost to rebuild this building."