August 22, 2007
The city-owned building at Old and Sycamore shuts down local business
Re: the city-owned building at Old and Sycamore [update: address is 8 W. Old St.] — the one whose facade has been coughing bricks onto both the sidewalk and the roof of the Retreat next door for weeks (I hear two fell just yesterday as a retailer’s client was loading her car) — Well, part of the roof caved in. The two blocks west of Old and Sycamore are blocked to traffic, with the expected negative impact to merchants and restaurants on the given blocks. But worse, the Retreat has been shut down by the fire marshall:
“Notice. This building is unsafe and its use or occupany has been prohibited by the building official….” This sign is accompanied by: “Pick up paychecks at Maria’s.” Thus, a local business is now under order to shut down until the city stabilizes or demo’s its own property, something the owner of this business has no power to control.
The Old Towne Merchants are frustrated. 1) They have been asking the city to demo or stabilize this property for some time, due to the obvious hazard it presents to passersby. 2) A merchant was told that the City’s response is favoring demo of only the top floor, leaving the remaining unusable eyesore of a shell at a major intersection of a historic district. 3) While the City’s property is negatively impacting businesses, no crews are out there effecting the demo with all due haste so that businesses can return to normal operations as soon as possible.
I understand CBS6 was out there covering this.
What a shame that a business had to close. I wasn’t aware that the city owned any buildings at that intersection. I hope the city can get the work done quickly.
Thanks for the information.
Tis 8 W. Old St. The assessor’s records verify city ownership.
That derelict was offered to a local for about $8500 a short while back. Then the price was jacked up to $15,000. There are always two prices– the listed one, and the “insiders’” one. Soon it will crumble to nothing because of inaction to stabilize it, and the business owners who have poured small fortunes into other buildings on that street will be the ones to suffer.
I understand the local businesses would like to see the building fully demo’d, not stabilized, and replaced with something nice like a garden or playground or …
Just learned that the building on Sycamore closest to the above intersection (the one with Odyssey Accounting) has also been condemned until 8 W. Old gets resolved.
Sad but not surprising. The city is the owner of the most slum property in the city some 200-400 properties total in my estimation. It is a wonder no one has been seriously injured yet. Any takers on a bet for the next city owned building to fall into the street? I put my money on the buildings on North Sycamore across from the Trading Post and next to the Cockade - I’ve heard how pieces of those buildings fly off every time the wind blows.
Chris - the city doesn’t own the buildings next to Cockade. I believe one of the new residents in town was inspired by R/UDAT to approach the owner of the building immediately next to Cockade in an effort to try to save it. Don’t know where things have gone from there.
BTW, good guess re: # of city-owned properties. I asked the assessor’s office for a current list back in May. 437 properties at that time.
BTW part 2, I personally don’t see that it is necessarily bad that a city might acquire a bunch of dilapidated buildings that have fallen into disrepair because, e.g., someone out of state inherits them and isn’t around to do anything with them. And I imagine that when a city with limited human and financial capital acquires a portfolio of 400+ properties, that must be a handful. The circumstances involving 8 W. could have been avoided however. The chainlink temporary fence that went up along the sidewalk a few weeks ago was a bandaid on a symptom, not a solution aimed at the cause.
Good grief! That is awful! How can Petersburg just screw its business owner, who is paying taxes and has a business which brings people into the area to spend money in other businesses?
Melinda will end up losing customers because of this- they will go elsewhere while the city gets its act together, not to mention all the money lost by the time the place has to be closed, through no fault of her own.
What a disaster, and one that could have been avoided if whoever is responsible had been responsible. This is no tornado; this is a city responsibilty. Petersburg needs to compensate her, and compensate her a lot.
What an example is set for potential business owners in Petersburg.
i can’t believe that nobody remembers when this happened last year. an old building on halifax st; in the triangle collasped, the city owned building adjacent was taken down as a result. nobody cared then and nobody in the city cares now. the building next to cockade was going to be purchased by lynch but i don’t think it ever went through. it’s roof blowing in the wind has shut down sycamore earlier this year. it’s in bad shape, it used to have big holes in the front plywood where you could see inside.
if a tree falls in the woods does anybody here it?
I didn’t know about the Halifax collapse…I guess some of us are pretty new to town still.
Well….keep it in perspective. As long as the city of Petersburg can spend fifty grand a year to take care of Alzena’s we shouldn’t complain about a few city-owned buildings falling down.
I went down and checked out Old Street tonight. For the moment, it is definitely a hardship on Melinda’s business and/or others that must shut down for several days. But Maria’s wisely put an Open for Business sign at the detour and her place was packed. If the other businesses that can remain open during the street closing can continue to do well, it may be proving a point many of us have wondered about for a while. During the week, Old Street is besieged by 18-wheelers, speeders and endless, heavy traffic that has been taking its toll on the old structures for years. It SHOULD NOT be used as a major thoroughfare to Ettrick and elsewhere. This traffic just races through and does no business in town. At the same time, people working on Old Street park their cars in the same spot all day, discouraging visitors. Right now, if traffic can manage with the street closed, and businesses stay alive, it will prove that this could be the beginning of a quiet, historic shopping and dining area for pedestrians, not semis. The street and its structures have been abused by speeding overweight and downright nasty vehicles for far too long.
Re: Maria’s being packed — that is one super cool thing about this town — people are there to help each other. :-)
Perhaps we should pitch to city council that a “No thru trucks” sign be posted somewhere. I think it’d be difficult as it would have to be up toward Washington street to give them an opportunity to detour. It’s worth a try though.
Should we also change the parking to “Two hour limit between 8A and 6P”??? That would open up a few spaces.
Is the proper spelling Old Town or Old Towne. I see it spelled both ways in correspondence, the news, and even signs downtown.
Kenny, read this thread.
A crew is at 8 W. Old today.
CBS6 was back again; they should have more details soon.
All - get to Maria’s for lunch/dinner and do your part to make sure that this new source of good eats *is* packed in spite of the goings on down at the corner. :-)
While last night’s CBS6 coverage is not online to check out (pssst, tv peeps…some of us of a particular disposition or generation get our news from the internet, not the tele…), one of Petersburg’s citizens - Ron Moring - covered CBS6 covering Petersburg:
a few shots of the building and work being done:
and while in the area:
(inside the farmer’s market, which is being restored and will be the new home of Petersburg’s Visitor’s Center).
btw, my meaning in “to tv peeps” is that the TV stations need to broadcast more of their programming online… with some delay if not in real time.
Note: I corrected the photo credit in comment #20.
This one appears (?) to have been taken after the roof collapse, but b/f any work was done (or in other words, this image appears to pre-date the other images of the building above.)
The P-I notes that 8 W Old is now stable and the surrounding businesses can open.
And then there is this:
uh… point of correction?: For months the merchants have been saying that this building has been coughing bricks into the street and on top of the Retreat’s roof, which presumably is why the city put one of those freestanding chain link fences around the builing and sidewalk out front several weeks back?
Re: the PI Aug. 31,2007 point of correction Actually the entire block of Old St. had been completely closed to vehicle traffic on Aug. 22, 2007. And I am certain the word ‘carefully’ should not be used to characterize the manner in which the sledge hammers smashed the circa 1817 bricks to the pile of debris one or more floors down.
There isn’t much left of the building now, and despite the early reports of it having little effect on business, other merchants on the street report that this has had a near catastrophic effect on their traffic.