City going to court over dilapidated downtown buildings

May 30—The city of Milledgeville is taking a downtown property owner to court for failure to clean up his properties after the roofs collapsed five years ago.

Memorial Day 2018 was when the roof over a couple of adjacent downtown Milledgeville buildings owned by an out-of-town man fell in. Neither space was occupied by tenants at the time of collapse. The buildings on the west side of South Wayne Street have basically remained that way ever since, save for the city placing two layers of fencing in front to maintain safety. The sidewalk is blocked off by said fencing, as are eight highly-coveted downtown parking spots, two of which are marked as handicapped spaces.

The properties are 107 and 115 S. Wayne St., which are next door to one another near the Wayne Street intersection with Hancock Street in the heart of downtown. The owner of said properties, according to Baldwin County Tax Assessor records, is All-Star Properties & Investments, LLC. A search on the Georgia Secretary of State's website revealed that LLC is registered to a Larry Simmons with a Conyers address.

City attorneys filed what's called a petition to abate nuisance in municipal court on April 12, 2023, saying the properties are in violation of Milledgeville codes, regulations and ordinances. The two parties will go before Milledgeville Municipal Court Judge David McCree for a hearing Wednesday, June 7.

"The city wanted to get this problem addressed," City Attorney Jimmy Jordan said. "It was clear that Mr. Simmons, on behalf of his company, was not going to do that."

Jordan supplied the newspaper with court filings pertaining to the case. They are also tacked signs onto the fencing in front of the dilapidated Wayne Street properties, as required by law. Jordan is working alongside City Solicitor Carl Cansino and his office on the case. Cansino Law Firm attorney Kerry Allen has been heading up the effort on her office's side.

The filings show that the city has made repeated attempts to get Simmons to commit to cleaning up the debris, beginning within a week's time of when the collapse occurred. Additional correspondence came Aug. 10, 2018, city records say, and Simmons still did not act. Jordan shared that the two sides engaged in mediation overseen by a judge on Sept. 9, 2021.

"We actually came to an agreement that the city, if Mr. Simmons or his company qualified, would loan him a sufficient amount of money from the city's downtown revolving loan fund to clear out the building and provide proper bracing for the common walls on either side and also the facade because everybody wanted to keep the facade," said Jordan.

The city attorney said that Simmons never returned the application for the loan.

"We had a deal and Mr. Simmons didn't follow through."

The city feels as though it has exhausted its options and is ready to possibly eat the cost of clearing the debris and bracing the remaining structure to make the scene less of an eyesore. Jordan said the common walls with the adjacent buildings will have to be braced because they are equally a part of the buildings on either side. Whether the facade, which is leaning towards the sidewalk and street, can be saved is not known. The city has been provided a quote of $212,562.50 for the work, and will present that along with its case to Judge McRee on June 7. If the judge allows the city to clean the site, a lien may be attached to the properties and the city could foreclose on that lien should it go unpaid.

"If the owner does not satisfy the lien, then there will be an opportunity for a sale of that property," Jordan said. "Whatever we get from the sale will come to [the city] in satisfaction of the lien."

The properties in the past have been an arcade, pool room and pharmacy. A mortar and pestle, tools commonly shown on pharmacy signage, can still be seen on the facade of one of the properties.

That's the past. More will be known about the future of the Wayne Street properties following the June 7 hearing.

"At least we're getting to the point of getting to this hearing to give everybody an idea of how we're going to be able to proceed and maybe a timetable," said Jordan.