Mike Wolanin | The Republic A view of the fire damage to the Irwin Block building in Columbus, Ind., Friday, Dec. 9, 2022.
The Columbus Board of Public Works has suspended an order to demolish a fire-ravaged building on Fifth Street after hearing plans from a company that is working with the building’s owners to perform the demolition.
The board voted Tuesday to suspend an order to demolish the Irwin Block Building on Fifth Street that it had authorized last week pending further review of a demolition permit.
The vote came after the board heard plans to demolish the building from a representative of Indianapolis-based Casey-Bertram who attended the board’s meeting on Tuesday.
The company is working to get everything safe for crews to be on site and complying with state regulations, said Jimmy Arthur, an estimator and project manager at Casey-Bertram, who fielded questions from the board on Tuesday.
Gas and cable service to the building have already been disconnected, though Duke Energy had yet to disconnect electric service as of Tuesday morning, Arthur said.
In addition, samples taken from the building have been sent to a lab to be tested for asbestos, as required by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. The results of the tests were not yet available on Tuesday, though Arthur said he hopes to have the results by the end of the week or next week.
“Once we got all those parts and pieces, we’ll be able to get (a) crew on site and get started,” Arthur told the board on Tuesday. “I think within the next two weeks we should be on site. It’s not going to be a fast process. It will probably take several weeks. I would probably say six to eight weeks to completely do the job.”
As of 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, no demolition permits had been issued for the property, official said.
It has been over three weeks since a fire destroyed the building, resulting in a large portion of the building’s third-story facade collapsing onto the sidewalk and street. The building is believed to be at risk of collapse.
Local and state investigators have ruled the cause of the blaze as “undetermined,” meaning that they were unable to find enough physical evidence or evidence obtained from witnesses that would indicate what caused the fire.
Last week, the Columbus Board of Works voted to authorize the city to issue a demolition order on the property, which is owned by Jayne Hege and her sisters. The action was recommended by city attorney Alan Whitted in the hopes of hearing specific demolition plans from the owners.
Mayor Jim Lienhoop said last week that issuing the order meant that the city is allowed to proceed with demolition if the owners don’t take care of it themselves. “We really don’t want to interject the city into this process,” Lienhoop said last week, “but they need to keep the line of communication open and let us know what their plan is.”
The Board of Works previously voted on Dec. 7 to condemn the Irwin Block Building as unsafe for human habitation.
The company is expected to update Whitted on progress made each week toward the demolition completion.
