The city has ordered owner Harry Denune to have an engineer inspect the 200 W. High St. building and issue a report on it or appeal the decision within 30 days.
Parts of the exterior have some erosion issues, but the structure itself is likely sound, Assistant Fire Chief Nick Heimlich said.
Denune said he has hired an architect and doesn’t want anymore bricks to fall off.
The city has a long history with Denune and the Crowell-Collier building, marked by a massive fire there 10 years ago that was followed by attempts to improve the structure.
Several of Denune’s family members worked in the former Crowell-Collier publishing plant.
Denune remembers the former printing plant glowing with blue light and the sidewalks rumbling as the presses ran.
He isn’t eager to part with the complex of several buildings and about 875,000 square feet, in part because he has it full of machinery and the motorcycle parts sold by his Dixie Distributing Co. Moving everything out would be expensive, he said.
But Denune said he would sell it if he received a reasonable offer. “I don’t want to hold up progress,” he said.
That progress for western downtown is in a time of transition. A handful of massive buildings have come down and big projects like a new hospital are going up.
But a lot of work remains.
Part of the difficulty with redeveloping that western part of downtown is how to make reasonable offers on buildings that have negative value, Loftis said.
The real or perceived threat of environmental contamination, he said, and the costs of restoration or demolition and rebuilding can scare off private investors.
That’s where the government can play a role, Loftis said.
In the past few years, Springfield has combined state and federal grants for cleanups and worked with Midland to redevelop several sites downtown, including some previously owned by Denune’s companies.
City Manager Jim Bodenmiller would like to see a community discussion about what to do with these buildings.
“It has to be both practical and visionary,” he said. “We have to set priorities for what we want to try to save.”
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