It’s hard to believe it’s already been more than three years since a downtown fire destroyed a long abandoned century-old building and damaged the adjacent Canyon Club and Red Garter Bed & Bakery in Williams, Ariz.
It’s harder to believe the land where the building burned has been unused since — especially when Williams’ main drag of Route 66 is a tourist mecca.
But according to the Williams-Grand Canyon News, the parcel has been tied up in a legal morass:
A criminal restitution judgment was made against Frances Reuter of Yellow Daisy Enterprises in 2007, in regards to abatement funds owed to the city of Williams for their part in cleaning up the debris from the fire. Reuter owned the property in question at the time of the fire.
The Reuter property caught fire June 20, 2005, in what came to be known as one of the worst downtown fires in recent history. Abatement for asbestos and demolition followed the fire. City officials subsequently put a lien on the property toward those abatement costs, said Williams City Attorney Lat Celmins.
“Those costs are in the range of about $120,000. Currently the property is past due in its payment of taxes and the entity, by the name of Carey Enterprises, Inc., purchased the tax liens for that property. Those tax liens were approximately $10,000. Carey Enterprises initiated a lawsuit in Coconino County Superior Court to foreclose on those tax liens,” Celmins said.
Officials with the city of Williams may enter into an agreement with Carey Enterprises, Celmins added, to recoup the money from the abatements. Portions of the agreement may include selling the land at a public auction. He warned, however, that ownership of the property might not fall to city of Williams officials, though he also said that it would only make sense to put the property to some good use in a timely manner – no matter who the owner happened to be.
The land has been sitting empty for so long that locals are calling it “The Gap” — as in a gap between the buildings.
Owners of the Red Garter and Canyon Club say they want input on future plans for the property.
“We’d like to have input, if possible, on whatever you are going to be doing,” Holst said. “We were, for 30 years, neighbors to and helping take care of the vacant building and the issues that were ongoing with that property and concerned, of course, for the appearance of that place, both as a vacant property and then, after the fire, as a vacant lot. We did sustain damage beyond what we recovered from insurance on that property. We’re not looking for compensation or any special treatment for that, but we would like to be involved in the process, if at all possible, in how this gets back into the private sector, or if there are certain plans that the city has for developing it for their own use. We’re unaware exactly what plans the city might have for this project.”
That seems entirely reasonable.