A piece of property on Clay Street that has been in and out of court since its collapse more than five years ago is the topic of a July 25 public hearing at the city hall annex.

The city’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen is holding the 1 p.m. hearing to discuss the city’s plans to clean the sidewalk in front of the old Thomas Furniture Store site at 713 Clay St. Part of the city’s notification of the hearing is the posting of a large red sign, which went up Friday afternoon, just weeks after a letter to the editor in The Vicksburg Post questioned why the city had done nothing to clean up the site.

The 140-year-old building collapsed in January 2006, and was the subject of a 2 1/2-year lawsuit between the city and building owners Preston and Mary Reuther that was resolved in 2008. A second suit was filed in 2010 by Lisa Ashcraft, who with her husband, Randy, owns the former First Federal Savings and Loan building at 1221 Washington St., which shared a wall with Thomas Furniture.

An agreement between the city and the Reuthers in 2008 opened the door for the building’s demolition to resume. Ashcraft’s suit halted it.

Victor Grey-Lewis, Vicksburg’s building and inspections director, said city workers will not be doing demolition at the site.

“We’re going to cut and remove the grass and pick up the loose bricks and pile them up in the rear of the property to make it look cleaner, and clean up the sidewalk to make it more presentable,” he said.

Grey-Lewis said the sign on the property is required by state law as part of the hearing notification. He said city officials also are required to notify the property owner by registered letter. He said the city has been putting out signs in front of overgrown and blighted properties since August.

According to city records, inspection department workers have put out an average of 15 to 20 signs a week since August.

City attorney Lee Davis Thames said the sign is part of an amendment to state law passed by the Legislature in 2009 to make it easier for cities to deal with overgrown and blighted properties.

“(When) we have neighbors complaining about a piece of property, we send an investigator out to look into the complaints,” Thames said. “If it needs to be cleaned, we notify the owners of the property and, in addition, we post the sign so anyone who has an interest in the property can comment. It simplifies the process.”

Thames said city officials have received a number of complaints about the Thomas Furniture property.

“I think it’s an eyesore and needs to be cleaned,” Adolph Rose Antiques owner Larry Walker said. “It’s hurting downtown. It’s a terrible thing for visitors to Vicksburg to have to see.”

Walker leases store space from Malcolm Allred, who owns the Adolph Rose building and lives in the building that, too, was damaged when the Thomas Furniture building collapsed. A hole in its west wall was later repaired.

“I’m glad to see the city get after it after six years,” Allred said about the July 25 hearing.

When the city and the Reuthers settled their case in June 2008, Preston Reuther hired Antique Wood and Brick Company of Mississippi to complete the demolition.

The Ashcrafts’ March 25, 2010, suit against the Reuthers, the city and Antique Wood and Brick Co. owner Bill Greenwood stopped the demolition because of a potential threat to the Ashcrafts’ property. Nothing has been done to the property since a March 30, 2010, injunction halting the demolition was granted in Warren County Court.

Reuther said Tuesday that a company called Downtown Vicksburg Investments Inc., a limited liability company, now owns the land.

The company’s officers are not listed in its records filed with the Mississippi Secretary of State, but its St. Joseph, Mo., address on the Warren County tax rolls is the same as the Reuthers’.

Preston Reuther said he would be represented by an attorney at the July 25 hearing, adding he might also attend.

Ashcraft is attending the hearing with her attorney, Blake Teller.

“We’ve already told the city that if they go on that property, they’d better have an engineer with them,” Ashcraft said. “We’ve been trying to reach an agreement. Everyone’s been willing to come to the table except the city.”