Safety issues a concern at Centreville building most recently used for hardware store

The fate of a building in downtown Centreville remains in a holding pattern, as its owner attempts to sell the property.

In the meantime, village officials and its zoning administrator/compliance officer say there’s not a lot they can do legally to address basic safety needs despite a few incidents that could have caused public concern.

The building in question has been closed a number of years now and its last tenant was Truckenmiller Hardware. Owner Tim Heidl has been trying to sell the building but, to date, has not had success, village president Brandy Eckert said.

She provided a summary of the situation.

“When he did get the building, the village gave like a three-year (window) where they weren’t going to give him any violations because there was an understanding that he was going to fix it up,” Eckert said. “But, as anyone can tell, it has not been fixed up.”

Eckert said a few members from the village’s Downtown Development Authority toured the inside of the building about 18 months ago. She said the building’s interior at that time was better than it is currently.

The situation gained a higher profile in early April, when a façade issue became a public-safety matter. Eckert said the situation prompted her to contact compliance officer Doug Kuhlman.

“There was a hunk of metal (siding) that had detached from the front of the building and was flapping in the wind,” she said. “A few days before that, I received an e-mail from (a resident) who said a board popped off the front of the building on an especially windy day.”

Eckert said she looked into the matter and found that in all, two boards had fallen from the building front and the metal siding was still unsecured. She quickly instructed the village’s department of public works to block off the sidewalk area under the building on its West Main Street side.

She noted Heidl told her he did not have a Hi-Lo or any other kind of elevation-enabling machine allowing him to reach potions of the exterior in need of attention.

“There is no entrance to the roof from the inside of that building because whoever had it prior to the previous couple of owners had boxed off the roof entrance,” she said. “So, the stairway goes up to nowhere.”

She said the village has been more than patient with Heidl, acknowledging some personal and financial obstacles he has been facing. As a result, Eckert said the village can’t do anything about the building, at the moment.

“Now, I spoke to him not long ago and there is a person interested in the building, but we have our hands tied right now with what we can do,” Eckert said, noting the prospective buyer has preliminary plans that show an ambitious project. It involves upgrading the building to code, adding a pair of second-story living quarters, fixing the roof and a number of other measures. “He wants to wash his hands of the building.”

A full restoration could cost at least $100,000, Eckert said she was told by the prospective buyer.

“The frustrating part of the situation is you want to do something, the residents want you to do something, but legally, your hands are tied,” she said. “The last thing we need is something to come back on the village, a lawsuit or something, because we tried to do something to the building that we weren’t supposed to.”

Heidl, a St. Joseph County resident, could not be reached for comment.

Kuhlman confirmed the village is not authorized to attempt to correct the situation. Kuhlman elaborated on what he has noticed.

“When you look up at the upper left-hand corner, the reason the metal is delaminating from the building is because the boards behind it are rotten, so, it already means water is getting back in there,” he said. “You take all the metal off and now it’s really going to expose it to water, and then (Heidl) could come after us for damaging his building … it would be trespassing on private property and you’d be actually damaging private property by removing stuff off the building without authority.”

Kuhlman said there’s no benefit to issuing a citation to Heidl.

“If I did follow through and issued a citation today or this week, I’m going to guess it’d be eight months before we could get a court order, with the court order and the deadline for him to do something,” Kuhlman said, noting a portion of the north end of the building has already collapsed and he suspects the roof is leaking.

This article originally appeared on Sturgis Journal: Safety issues a concern at downtown Centreville building