The Belfast City Council is moving forward with efforts to tear down a derelict downtown building after its owner failed to follow a court order earlier this year requiring him to do so.
Councilors voted 5-0 on Tuesday night to take by eminent domain the abandoned former nursing home at 74 High St., which officials have been trying to get demolished for at least four years. They now hope to receive grant funding for the job.
Formerly called Bradbury Manor, local officials have said that the building is structurally unsound and dangerous to the public.
James Constable, the principal for the company that owns the building, 74 High Street LLC, was not at the meeting and did not publicly comment.
One attendee, Belfast resident Zafra Whitcomb, spoke in favor of the council’s decision.
“It’s been extremely frustrating to watch the city go through this over the past years, and very frustrating to see the owner, Mr. Constable, not responding and not acting in any way as a serious or positive actor in the case,” Whitcomb told councilors. “I want to state clearly that I strongly support the vote in favor. I feel that, perhaps, it has not gone far enough.”
In June, a Belfast court had ordered 74 High Street LLC to tear down the building within 30 days and pay more than $100,000 in fines and legal fees to the city in connection with its code violations. That came after the city first declared the building dangerous in 2021.
Now, the city is intervening after the owner didn’t act on that court order. It aims to apply for federal funding through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Brownfields program, which requires owning the structure. It has obtained an estimate that demolishing the building would cost $471,246.
“At this time, I feel that we’ve exhausted every alternative. We have had no luck in getting the owner to take care of their property. I feel that there could be one option left; and if we could access the funds in the Brownfields program, we could tear this building down,” Planning and Codes Director Bub Fournier said during an earlier meeting on Sept. 3.
