Steckler stuck: Code enforcement fines building for lack of progress

Jan. 11—ASHLAND — Since its purchase on the courthouse steps back in 2012, the Steckler Building at 1500 Winchester Ave. has sat empty.

A peek through the window, one can see a sun-bleached Mountain Dew bottle in the sill, pieces of scaffolding stacked neatly in the floor, next to steel I-beams.

Across the street, the building looks fine, but a closer look one can see the windows missing, the cracked concrete trim and the padlocks keeping people out.

Downstairs on 15th Street, a tarp hangs at the bottom near a door, surrounded by cigarette butts and empty airline bottles of Fireball. On a traffic cone, someone has stuck Post-It notes on it asking people to stay away, because someone is sleeping down there.

Halfway down the building, an opening is boarded up with OSB and a pallets. On another boarded up window, a vandal tagged the building with an ominous phrase "The end is upon us!"

But it doesn't look like the end is anywhere near — in fact, it doesn't really look like much of a beginning, either.

Nothing's happening with the building, much to the irritation of the Ashland Code Enforcement Board, which this week assessed fines to the building's owner for lack of progress.

Way back in 2012, George Breathitt owned the building, but found himself drowning in tax liens and an upside-down mortgage. Light Storm Properties had bought some county debt a few years earlier and that year called in the debt.

On June 1, 2012, the building went to tax auction, with various debut collectors recouping nearly $45,000 and the mortgager lender taking in about $131,000 after a local doctor and his wife bought it for $183,000.

Dr. Alexander Hou, a vascular surgeon at King's Daughter Medical Center at the time, and his wife Beth purchased the building. In 2016, an article in The Daily Independent laid out plans for turning the first floor into a restaurant space and the above floors into high-end apartments.

Yvonne Cubbison, the chair of the code enforcement board, said nothing has been happen since to the condemned building. In December, Hou appeared before the board, where Cubbison said she was led to believe that the building "would become inhabitable very shortly."

Per minutes from that meeting, Hou was told to resume work on the building within 10 days or citations would resume and property would be placed on a list of abandoned and blighted properties.

That designation would allow the board to quadruple the city property tax rate on the property.

Hou told the board that he would begin work again after COVID (which happened eight years after he bought the property) had slowed down progress. His general contractor, Chuck Meade, said pricing on the work would be finalized to get the project to start again.

However, at Tuesday's meeting, the doctor did not show. Meade showed up and told the board that he was still struggling to find subcontractors for the project, but hoped to get some pricing by the end of next week.

"Once I get that, the ball will be in his court," Meade said. "He'll have to determine if it cash flows for him."

When asked by assistant city attorney Andrew Wheeler what that means, Meade said Hou would need to get financing for the now-11-year-old project.

Meade also confirmed to the board that no work had been performed on the property, except for provisions to secure the building from homeless people and keep the elements out.

"I'm paying that out of my own pocket," he said.

Wheeler appeared none too pleased about the news and Hou's no-show at the meeting.

"My patience is gone at this point," Wheeler said. "I'm at a loss for words, frankly."

Meade said the bidding process with sub contractors has been ongoing since June and there has been difficulty in getting it priced out as well as getting materials.

Meade said if work were to start tomorrow, they could have it done in six months. He said the electric needs wiring and there needs to be construction of a loading dock, the elevator needs installed and the upstairs need sheetrocked before tenants could move into the apartments.

Of course, the plans would also need updated — the last set that were approved are now half-a-decade old. That could add another four-to-six weeks to the process.

Cubbison thanked Meade for showing up to the meeting, then stated she felt like "the board was between a rock and a hard place."

"It's just sitting there. It's still in good enough shape to be renovated and it's historical, so tearing it down is the last thing anybody wants to do," she said. "I've heard there were some people interested in buying it, but I don't think he wants to sell."

The Daily Independent contacted a phone number associated with Dr. Hou, but had about the same results as the code enforcement board did with him having answer.

The Steckler building will be back on the code enforcement agenda for its Feb. 14 meeting.

(606) 326-2653 — henry@dailyindependent.com