Four months after a major fire, the end could be near for downtown South Bend’s historic Lafayette Building.
A decade ago the city bought the building in the tax sale, stabilized it and put it on the market. Three years ago they found a buyer but she couldn’t come up with financing for renovation.
On Thursday the city’s redevelopment commission approved demolition if an interested developer doesn’t surface in the next month or two.
”Hoping that we can stop the demo track if something materializes but if it doesn’t we want to make sure we’re doing right by the public safety, and would be able to then demolish the building prior to the winter if we have to," said Joe Molnar, the city’s deputy community investment director.
He says the fire caused two major problems for the building. First, it took most of the roof, so structurally there’s nothing keeping the walls aligned at the top. And firefighters hit the flames with about a million gallons of water.
“I remember it was so bad there was water gushing out of the basement windows, and so that moisture and that pressure from the water, of course, hurt the masonry as well.”
