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The building at 121 S. Main St., Celina, has been deemed unsafe due to the lack of a proper roof or window covering, allowing water to enter the structure.
CELINA - The city has determined that a downtown building is unsafe and ordered the owner to make repairs.
City safety service director Tom Hitchcock sent a letter dated May 13 to Schmidt Trust of Yorkshire, stating that the city has determined that the property at 121 S. Main St. is an "unsafe building."
Specifically, Hitchcock cited a section of city code addressing unsafe buildings - those which lack proper roof or window covering, allowing water to enter the structure.
The front of the building has a recessed entry with a pair of double-sided display windows, each of which is covered with murals of flowers. A large section of the lower half of one of the display windows was busted out, offering a glimpse of the contents within. The building is currently vacant and has not been used by a business for an undetermined amount of time.
A large break in the front window of the building at 121 S. Main St., Celina, allows a pile of items inside to be seen from the street.
"Upon receipt of this letter, you will be allowed 60 days to either make the necessary repairs to the building or raze and remove it from the premises," the letter reads. "Failure to make the necessary repairs or to raze the structure within the above prescribed time shall cause the City of Celina to repair and/or raze the structure."
If the trust does not comply with the directive, the city's fix would consist of a sheet of plywood, Hitchcock informed city council members during their regular meeting on Monday night.
"Just a heads-up, we're not putting a new window in that building. Our only recourse is to plywood it," Hitchcock said. "We can paint it black, but it's still going to be black-painted plywood on that window … which will look horrible."
Councilman Joe Wolfe had questions about the conditions of the interior of the building.
"We stay on the exterior of the building. The city doesn't go inside buildings. That's either up to the fire marshal or the health department, so we work closely with them," Hitchcock said. "But they usually need a lot of evidence in order for them to act on anything. And their hands are kind of tied a little bit, too, inside buildings."
Wolfe asked about the possibility of using a bucket truck to inspect the building's roof for holes.
"We have. We've even had (a) drone up there taking drone pictures. I've had employees up on that roof, and the small little areas we had, he (the building representative) fixed after a big major windstorm," Hitchcock said. "We've got a lot of complaints about that, but there is no gaping holes up on the roof. We've been up there several times."
"It's just too bad that we have a building owner downtown that we can't do anything with," Wolfe said.
The building at 121 S. Main St., Celina, has been deemed unsafe due to the lack of a proper roof or window covering, allowing water to enter the structure. It is currently vacant.
Councilman Eric Clausen said it seems like there should be a means for the city to be able to look deeper into a building.
"Going along the lines with (what) Joe was asking, and especially when we saw the building in St. Marys collapse and kill somebody due to an unsafe structure, that somehow we don't see when it's getting to be an unsafe structure and then something does happen," he said.
"But I guess it has to be visible from the outside, is what you're saying."
"For the city, yes," Hitchcock replied. "Even if the building was being built, the city has no inspection requirements besides to make sure it meets our setbacks."
All commercial and industrial projects are under the jurisdiction of the state building department, Hitchcock said.
"The city has zero involvement with the construction of these," he continued. "We also then have zero involvement in the inside structural integrity of them because we have zero involvement in the construction of them. And like I said, it takes a lot of evidence to try to get the state to come down."
The building at 121 S. Main St., Celina, has been deemed unsafe due to the lack of a proper roof or window covering, allowing water to enter the structure. It is currently vacant.
City councilors in 2012 approved legislation to strengthen city administrators' ability to go after unsafe buildings. The policy authorizes Hitchcock to act as building inspector with the power to deem structures dangerous and unfit and order repairs or demolition.
It explicitly lists several defects that would define a dangerous and unfit structure, such as leaning or buckling walls; damage by decay, deterioration, fire, wind or other elements; and unfit conditions for habitation.
The legislation, Celina Mayor Jeff Hazel has said, was an in important step in giving property owners the incentive to maintain, rehab or demolish older structures.
In at least one instance, an unsafe building notice set into motion the restoration and repurposing of a commercial building.
Hitchcock sent a letter in February 2019 to the erstwhile owners of the former Lininger building at 202 South Main St. The owners were ordered to make necessary repairs to make the building safe or to raze and remove it.
"It started shedding chunks of plaster and some mortar. It was dropping on the sidewalk," Hazel told councilors. "So based on that, we were looking at a safety element and that's where that condemnation (was merited), because on that point that was a structural issue."
Not wanting to lose a historic downtown building, Mercer County community development director Jared Ebbing successfully applied for a $250,000 grant to get the building up to code. The building was subsequently sold, restored and turned into a restaurant.
"Structurally it could be fixed, but that is how we noticed it, from the outside, because it was actually starting to knock things out in the street. We were going to have to block off the sidewalk," Hazel said.
