City of Alpine, Ivey negotiating potential sale of property
ALPINE — Nearly six months after a fire destroyed a 1911-built structure housing several local businesses on Holland Avenue, a timeline for the clean up of the site has yet to be determined.
While the property remains in the care of current owner Bill Ivey, the city itself has emerged as a potential buyer for the building located in a historic section of downtown Alpine. City Council directed City Manager Megan Antrim to head up negotiations with Ivey on a potential sale on September 17.
Antrim told The Big Bend Sentinel the city is continuing to work with Ivey on next steps, but a sale is not yet finalized. Ivey said he is still considering several options for how to move forward.
The fire, for which a cause was never officially determined, completely destroyed the building located at 109 to 115 West Holland Avenue. The day after the fire the area was blackened by smoke and ash; the roof, walls and building contents succumbed to the flames, leaving behind nothing but smoldering piles of rubble.
In the days following the tragedy, a temporary wall — paid for by Rick Stephens, not in his capacity as a council member — was erected to keep the public out of the scorched site. Discussions soon ensued at the city level regarding what to do with the now-vacant site, with the mayor and City Council members recognizing the greater need for a revitalization of downtown Alpine.
Ivey said he is currently awaiting two bids from local contractors to see how much it will cost to clean up the site. “I have no idea how much the bids will be, if I can even afford it,” Ivey said. “That’s the next step is to discover how much it’s going to cost to clean it up.”
“It’s a very slow process,” he added. “We’re doing the best we can, considering the situation.”
The city required that Ivey have an asbestos inspection completed in order to discover whether it was safe to dispose of the wreckage in the landfill, Antrim said. The Texas Asbestos Health Protection Rules and EPA regulations require that an asbestos survey be done prior to renovation or demolition activities.
Ivey said it took two to three months to get the asbestos inspection completed. The Sentinel obtained a copy of the asbestos report from the city, which is dated August 2. The site was surveyed by a Texas Department of State Health Services (TDSHS) licensed asbestos inspector on July 5.
The inspector collected 31 samples from nine different areas of the wreckage, noting in the report that “additional suspect but unsampled materials could be in walls, voids, under debris or in other concealed areas” due to the condition of the building.
Of those samples, low levels of asbestos were found in both the “off white wall plaster on brick/cement block” in the antiques shop and in the “built-up roofing” located in debris throughout the building. The report recommends that while the wall plaster is “exempt from the requirement for regulated approval,” it should be removed by a TDSHS-licensed asbestos abatement contractor prior to demolition.
The asbestos-containing roofing “may be cleaned up without an abatement scope of work or may be demolished in place with the structure,” according to the report.
The report also recommends that, if the plaster found in the antiques shop remains in place during demolition, someone properly trained is on site to ensure disturbance of the material does not cause “airborne fiber counts” to exceed OSHA permissible exposure levels. The same goes for the roofing.
Antrim said with those results the city can okay the disposal of building materials at its landfill. She said compliance with the air quality standards during demolition will be up to the building’s owner to enforce.
Ivey said potential buyers who have contacted him were interested in the results of the asbestos report and now that it’s complete he can figure out what to do with the property. It is possible that Ivey could sell the structure as is, with a potential new owner agreeing to perform the demolition and clean up. He said he has an interested party — which he declined to disclose — willing to take the site as-is who is formulating a bid for his consideration. “Everything’s on the table,” Ivey said. “I’m open to all suggestions, all offers.”
But, he noted, he doesn’t want to see the site taken over by another Dollar Store, for example. “I will be particular on who I would sell it to,” Ivey said. “They would have to have good intentions to help the downtown district.”
According to documents obtained by The Sentinel, the city’s code enforcement department did send a letter to Ivey on September 5 notifying him of a dangerous building violation. The building official in charge at the time, Robert Rückes, has since resigned.
The letter states that compliance is mandatory and after 15 days a citation will be issued. It also states that minimum court fees start at $81. “The remainder of the building and debris needs to be abated as well as the temporary wall that is encroaching on the public right of way,” the letter states. “The entire property must be demolished and disposed of properly including all walls unless proven otherwise. Please pull proper permits before abatement.”
Ivey told The Sentinel he became aware of the letter after finding it in a pile of mail just last week. He said he was confused about the temporary wall issue the letter broached considering the city wanted to put it up to discourage people from entering the area.
Ivey said he is aware of the fact that he will likely need to pull permits for the demolition and clean up process — including a potential permit to close the alley behind the store and another to utilize a nearby parking lot — but that the letter was “discouraging” and made it seem like the city is “not willing to understand that this is not a process that’s going to happen overnight.”
“It’s not just, let’s go in there and clean it up,” Ivey said. “There’s a lot of hoops to jump through for permitting and all of that just to get started.”
Antrim did not express concerns about how long the clean up process is taking, but said the matter has been discussed in city council executive sessions. She said she is unaware if Ivey has been issued a court date regarding the citation.
Ivey said he has complied with city requirements, and that the delay in getting the situation remedied is not due to resistance on his end. “It’s not out of not caring, or anything like that,” Ivey said. “I do care very much about what happens to that piece of property, because it is just a horrible scar in our city.”