The Phoenix Building at Ninth and Main streets will be demolished, further widening a vacant gap in the center of downtown Hopkinsville after city officials pushed a property owner to deal with his dilapidated historic structures.
Attorneys for the property owner and for the city of Hopkinsville reached an agreement on how to proceed with demolition, Christian Circuit Judge Andrew Self announced Thursday afternoon during a brief hearing.
The apparent resolution comes six months after Hopkinsville Fire Department officials condemned the Phoenix — based on a structural engineer’s assessment that the building was not safe to enter — and gave the owner 90 days to present a plan to repair or demolish the building. That deadline passed in April.
“I want to commend the attorneys for their hard work and their good faith in trying to resolve what I know is a sensitive issue for everybody involved,” Self said.
Attorney Ken Humphries — who represents Phoenix owner Bobo Cravens and his son, Alfred Cravens — read the terms of the agreement in court.
The city will immediately advertise for bids to demolish the building, while simultaneously the Cravens family will also attempt to hire a contractor.
City Attorney Doug Willen said the city will advertise for bids on Friday, with the goal of awarding a contract in 14 days. Work would begin within seven days of signing a contract and be completed within another 30 days.
If the Cravens family does not hire a contractor in that time frame, the city will proceed with the work.
The agreement also allows the owners to attempt removal of some architectural features, such as a decorative ceiling, inside the building. The schedule could be extended if more time is needed to get some materials out. The Cravens family will be responsible for hiring an expert to survey the building and determine if anything can be saved.
“There is some room for flexibility on the time frame,” Self said.
If the city ends up hiring and paying a demolition contractor, Willen said, then a lien will be filed on the property. That could lead to foreclosure, giving the city the means to recoup a portion of the expense of razing the building.
“I feel rather well about it,” Mayor James R. Knight Jr. said a few hours after the court hearing. “This is what I was pushing for, a time frame.”
Knight has said that cleaning up the city is a priority for his administration, and the condemnation order at the Phoenix came about two weeks after he took office.
Two buildings adjacent to the Phoenix that also had major structural deficiencies, the Holland Opera House and Lee’s Game Room, were demolished in March following a city council vote to tear down the condemned properties. The Cravens family also owned the opera house. Liens have been filed on those two properties. Knight told Hoptown Chronicle the city has spent about $400,000 on demolition and attorney’s fees for those sites and said the city isn’t likely to recoup all of that money with foreclosure and then a sale of the real estate.
The Phoenix is one of the oldest structures in Hopkinsville. It was built in the early 1800s, originally as a hotel, Christian County Historian William T. Turner previously told Hoptown Chronicle. At some point, the building was seriously damaged in a fire and was rebuilt. Some of the exterior walls at the back of the building appear to be from the original construction.
The building, sitting at the symbolic center of downtown, has been in a state of disrepair for several years. Recently some of the large windows have broken or fallen out, and much of the building is now boarded up. It appears vandals have been pulling out metal strips that line the window frames.
Part of the court agreement outlined Thursday requires the Cravens family to ensure that vagrants don’t get inside the building during the period leading up to demolition.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
