Vacant buildings continue to be a blight on the city landscape. The City of Vicksburg has been lenient when it comes to vacant and damaged buildings.
A heavily damaged building has been allowed to stand for more than a year on Washington Street while thousands of visitors have meandered through downtown during several events meant to highlight Vicksburg. El Rio Mexican Restaurant was damaged in March 2013 when a fire in a second floor apartment of the building spread to the restaurant, which was on the first floor. The blaze also damaged two adjacent businesses, Michel’s Records on the south side of the building and On Time Fashions on the north. Both businesses have reopened. El Rio stands as a hulk in the middle of a growing downtown.
The building was bought by a bank at a foreclosure sale, and then sold to Premier Properties of Delaware, which has since cleaned the first floor of the building. A local investor is negotiating with Premier to buy the building, but that investor has not been named. The city will have to raze it if no buyer can be found.
The Oak Street Apartments are finally set for demolition this week under the city’s slum ordinance. The city condemned the two-story Oak Street Apartments on Oct. 14, 2013, after water and gas service was cut off to the building because the owner did not pay the utility bills.
“We will be doing the demolition in-house,” Community Development Director Victor Gray-Lewis said. “We had the determination of asbestos and that has been removed. We’re ready to go.”
City street department superintendent Skipper Whittington, whose crew will raze the building, said he was waiting for paperwork from community development officials. “Once I can get that, we can start,” he said.
How long should derelict buildings be allowed to stand until they are addressed? How long would the city of Madison allow a burnt-out building to stand in the middle of their vibrant downtown?
Since 1989 the Kuhn Memorial Hospital, 1422 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., has been mentioned as the site for a psychiatric hospital, juvenile facility and an assisted living facility. None of those projects materialized since the hospital was closed and abandoned.
Is 25 years long enough for an abandoned building to stand? If we want our community to shine we have to make tough decisions and make way for progress.