Despite years of work trying to save it, the Elks building on Veterans Square is going to be torn down.
Bradford City Council on Tuesday granted permission to the building inspector to issue a demolition permit to owner John Kohler to demolish the building.
Mayor Tom Riel said the city worked for several years to find somebody to save the building, and encouraged Kohler to buy it at a tax sale.
Kohler put “a great deal of money into it … only to find out it was way beyond economically feasible to repair the building,” Riel said, adding that one of the main roof beams cracked and started to collapse despite the fact that there was a new roof on it, and the interior walls are rotted to the outside walls of the building.
Riel further added that this is “a reminder from the grave of the former code enforcement department’s failure to address some of the building codes in the downtown. This is not the only building that was missed and now has to be demolished because of failed a program. We hope that moving forward we don’t have more buildings like this.”
“It sickens me that we have to vote for this,” Riel said, “and that a building right in the heart of our downtown, in our public square, was neglected by the employees of the city of Bradford who failed to do their job.”
Engineer Curt Wallace added that Kohler tried extensively to do something with the building including making it into apartments, businesses, banquet centers and more.
“There’s no way to bring that building back,” Wallace said.
“John tried his hardest and I think that it sickens John as much as it does you, Mayor Riel, to bring it down because he really wanted to see that thing come back.”
Earlier in the meeting, landlord Jim Connolly Jr. spoke about the city’s new Property Maintenance Office and said, while he was skeptical of it when it was proposed, he believes the office is doing some good and he can see positive changes.
He also praised property maintenance officers Kevin Huff and Mark Smith, and secretary Tarah Lipps and told Jeff Andrews, who heads the office, that they are doing a good job.
Also during the meeting, council approved more chances to the Graham’s Florist building on Kennedy Street.
The business will install a flower bed along the parking lot side of the building, put on a one-story addition and an exterior stair access to the rear of the building. The addition will include an overhead door for deliveries. The staircase will go from the ground floor to the second and third floors as additional egress for future apartments.
Council also OK’d a building permit for John Osborne to paint the front of his building at 19 Chestnut Street and replace the awning; and to Verizon to repair the stone parapet and add metal coping at its building at 30 East Corydon St.
The meeting started with a man who publically declared his love for marijuana earlier this month saying he is “upset with how Bradford is right now.”
23-year-old Troy Reed talked about the city’s drug problem, and said you can’t go to the police station for help because “there is a separation of power and I don’t understand it.”
“I just wanted to come here so I could look the man who is responsible for the way our town is right now in the face,” Reed said, and then left.
Before ending the meeting Riel thanked everyone who attended, even those who find it necessary to stand on the rooftop of their car saying they love weed.