An historic building under construction in Wyoming’s core will now be torn down.
The Broadway St. building has had fencing and barricades around it for months. The municipality had been dealing with the owner, Hermenegildo Tankengko, for several years when it became apparent he wasn’t caring for the building in the core.
After trying to get Tankengko to fix the building through the Property Standards Act, the municipality decided it should be demolished.
But when workers removed a wooden building at the back, officials worried demolition would damage the building beside it, a showroom for A Village Fireplace.
In August, Plympton-Wyoming CAO Carolyn Trip said removing the 100 year-old building wasn’t possible. The municipality hired a contractor and began repairing brick work, windows and the roof – all at the municipality’s expense to be charged back to the taxpayer.
But Tripp says as the contractor started working on the roof, more problems were found.
Work stopped on the building about a month ago and the town “looked at the cost analysis and found the cost was prohibitive to fix it at this point.”
So, Plympton-Wyoming hired an engineer to come up with a way for the building to be demolished without damaging the next door neighbours’ unit.
Tripp says they’ve put the job out to tender and hope to have the work completed before the end of December.
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