arwendt wrote: All so sad! Anyone know anything about that history of the building?

The building in question known as the Orman Building was originally owned and occupied by Water Refinning. When they went out sometime in the 80's it was purchased by Eddie Orman who intended to use it for storage of his antique cars and other things - maybe even rent some of it out. He built a lavish apartment in the building where he lived till he left and went to Florida. At that time a guy named Scott, who was a friend of the Orman Family took it over to sell used cars out of and also store various things. He did ok for a while and then business started going down hill so on December 17, 2002, Orman Enterprises sold it to Great Miami Real Estate for $400,000. I don't know what they intended to do with the property. On June 24, 2009 Great Miami Real Estate sold it to the State of Ohio for an undisclosed price. On August 25, 2009. the State of Ohio sold it to the City of Middletown, also for an undisclosed price. It was the City's intent to use it for storage of old city property, repossed cars and other recovered stolen property they no longer wanted to keep at the city building property room (storage room).

 

Second city-owned building found crumbling

By Michael D. Pitman

Staff Writer

MIDDLETOWN —

A second city-owned vacant downtown building in as many months has partially crumbled due to apparent deterioration.

Last week, the Manchester Inn’s Sonshine building, 101 N. Main St., had bricks fall from its facade onto the sidewalk. Access near the building on North Main Street and Manchester Avenue has been blocked by an orange plastic safety fence.

“The structure of the building is fine, just the brick facade has come loose,” said Doug Adkins, Middletown community revitalization director.

However, the future stability of the building is in question, he said.

“The condition of the metal lintels and mortar joints makes it impossible to know the stability of the remaining facade,” Adkins said.

Contractors removed loose brick from the building’s facade this past weekend. However, he said metal lintels — load-bearing building components — above the windows on building’s second floor are deteriorating and rusty, and mortar joints were inspected and also found to be deteriorating.

The sidewalk next to the building has been blocked from pedestrian access because “high winds or other conditions may trigger further collapse of the weakened facade presenting a hazard to anyone occupying the area below,” Adkins said.

Last week the city hired Vickers Wrecking to stabilize the partially collapsed wall and roof of the Orman building, 500 N. Verity Parkway. City officials were notified on July 27 of the partial roof collapse at the northwest wing of the city-owned building. Debris fell from the side of the building — which the walls are protruding — onto the adjacent railroad track.

The roof is apparently pushing on the building’s exterior walls, Adkins told city council last week.

Issues with the Orman building are forcing the city to raze the building sooner than anticipated, and could cost between $500,000 to $1 million, said City Manager Judy Gilleland. She said this would “wipe out” one of the city’s last remaining downtown project funds, but city staff is looking for grants to help offset some of the cost.

The fate of the Sonshine building, and how much that fate will cost the city, is being discussed, Adkins said.

“We are still looking at what the options are, possible risk and benefit of each option and then gathering costs and source of funding,” he said.

The city will likely address the Orman building’s issues before rendering a decision on the Sonshine building.

Bid packets are being prepared to be sent out to potential companies that would be interested in razing the Orman building. Packets had been sent out, but Adkins said they were pulled and reconfigured to reflect the stabilization work to be done this week. A date to open the bids has not yet been set.

Apparently the city is going ahead with their more expensiveplan (according to the latest story in The Middletown Journal).

In retrospect, I should have had a city hall insider suggestoff-loading the Wausau equipment across the street from the Ormanbuilding.  I should have known that theywould never have considered a suggestion from a mere common citizen.  In their eyes, what could a mere citizenpossibly know?  As with the removal ofthe roof over City Centre mall, they simply snicker and say “you don’tunderstand…go sit down”.

If I would’ve convinced Jim Verdin’s son-in-law or Ms. Boberto suggest it, it would have been a wonderful idea and we could’ve savedthousands of dollars.