A supersedeas bond of $300,000 for the St. Cloud buildings was not posted by the deadline of Dec. 16, according to the Lincoln County Court Clerk’s Office, opening up the way for the City of Chandler to demolish the historic hotel buildings.
The City of Chandler had no comment at this time; however, Theresa McKinzie, who owns Lincoln County Animal Hospital just next door to the buildings, said she was waiting for the bulldozers to pull up.
While she is relieved that something could finally be happening, McKinzie is frustrated that the owner of the buildings, John Givens, was allowed to drag things out this long.
“I’m pretty sure that that’s like the whole stipulation of if you’ve lost in court and you appeal it, you have to put up a bond. And I don’t think he ever intended to put up a bond, which means that they just kept pushing things off and delaying, which puts everybody at risk,” she said. “I am disappointed on many fronts, and most of them being that this has been allowed to drag out this long when he had no intention of actually doing it.”
McKinzie and her employees have not been allowed to operate out of their building since March 19, when the retrofit roof blew off 1216 Manvel, and it and 1214 were condemned by the Chandler code enforcement officer. She moved her hospital to the Stewart House next door, but has been operating at a much lower capacity. They’ve had to refer out services they normally wouldn’t, and surgeries are significantly diminished.
While McKinzie is “chomping at the bit” to get back into her building, there is still a significant amount of repairs to be made before she can reopen her business there, thanks to parts of the St. Cloud falling on her building. Her roof is patched, but it’s a total, according to her roofing company. There is water damage, and McKinzie isn’t sure how much that has affected her walls. Disaster restoration did go in and pull out everything wet, including all the insulation and the drop ceiling.
“At this point, depending on how long that takes, I mean, my gosh, we’ll probably be looking at a full year out of there, if not more. Which is the direct result of somebody just using delay tactics that had no intention of following through,” she said. “All it’s done is hurt us and the citizens of the town.”
The buildings have been a source of contention since the roof blew off. The Chandler City Council held two public hearings on them before voting to declare the two historic buildings dilapidated and approving their demolition on April 9.
Owner Givens then filed for a temporary injunction on May 5. He was granted a protection order and time to make repairs. After a hearing on June 25, Judge Dobry ruled that it was unlikely that Givens would be able to make the necessary repairs to make the building safe and usable and denied the injunction while allowing the protective order to dissolve. Givens’ attorney then filed an appeal.
On Nov. 12, the City of Chandler filed a motion to confirm the enforceability and notice of intent to commence with demolition. This led to the Dec. 1 hearing, where Dobry told Givens to post the bond and if it wasn’t by the deadline -- and there was no ruling by an appellate court -- then the City of Chandler is free to commence with demolition work.
McKinzie said the crux of the thing is that a person didn’t do what they were supposed to in order to keep up historic buildings, like repairs and maintenance.
“And that’s the problem, and because of tha,t we are losing a historical building in this town. And it’s a public nuisance at this point and a threat to the community because the building was allowed to get into the shape it is in,” she said.