The Red Men Lodge #99 building on Walnut Street in North Vernon has been condemned and officials are seeking a demolition order on the 1880s-era structure.
Dave Stafford | For The Republic
NORTH VERNON — A nearly 150-year-old building in North Vernon’s Downtown Historic District could meet the wrecking ball, depending on what happens in court next month.
The Jennings County Area Plan Commission has condemned the Red Men Lodge #99 building at 227 E. Walnut Street and has gone to court to seek a demolition order.
The commission says the building, a three-story edifice dating to about 1880, is unsafe and poses a hazard to public safety. Its owners, however, are contesting the commission’s petition asking the court for a demolition order. The suit names defendants Cool Cash Inc. and Samantha Reynolds as the building owner.
Jennings Superior Judge Gary Smith has set a hearing for 9 a.m. Aug. 11 on the commission’s complaint.
“The structure/building … is an unsafe building and blighted structure,” the commission’s amended complaint filed Thursday says, asking the court to “issue an order that the structure be demolished and removed from the premises or that the Defendant repair and/or rehabilitate the structure”.
The owners are represented by Madison attorney William Joseph Jenner, who declined to comment Friday. Reynolds could not immediately be reached for comment.
Several windows are broken on the side and back of the building, and inspectors have said the roof has extensive damage, among other structural concerns.
Jennings County Area Planning director Marie Shepherd declined to comment on the Walnut Street property, citing the pending litigation.
Second condemned building
The landmark three-story building on Walnut Street is the second downtown North Vernon structure to be slapped with a condemnation sticker in recent weeks.
The back of a condemned building on Madison Avenue in North Vernon after an addition to the building collapsed recently. The collapsed portion has been removed.
After an addition at the back of a building between the Park Theater and Crimson Oak Restaurant collapsed in May, the commission condemned the two-story building at 41 N. Madison Ave.
The collapsed portion of the building has been removed, and Shepherd said the owner, Tom Taylor, is working to find masons to repair the back of the building and have a structural engineer assess the building’s integrity.
Taylor said he owns several buildings in North Vernon and has owned commercial property there for 42 years, but he is winding down his ownership. He said he believes what remains of the original building now under a condemnation order — which he notes dates to the 1880s and originally was Tripp Hardware, named for a founding family back when North Vernon was called Tripton — is sound.
“I refer to that area as the theater district, and I would like to have something in there that would compliment and support my neighbors,” he said.
Taylor also once owned the Red Men Lodge building, but he no longer has an interest in it.
He wants downtowns like North Vernon’s to succeed, but he says all of them, particularly in rural areas, face a similar challenge in luring businesses and having steady revenue to meet long-term maintenance costs.
“The real question is economics,” he said. “Our downtowns cannot become tax-supported living museums. They have to be truly commercially viable, and that’s where the challenge is.”
“As with any downtown building and any building, even a house, they can’t just sit” unoccupied, Shepherd said, otherwise they ultimately will require extensive, costly repairs or demolition. “They’ve got to have life.”
