Falling down
City wants Knox Flats flattened
DOWNTOWN | Bruce Rushton
After a third-story window came crashing down last month from the dilapidated Knox Flats apartments near downtown, caretakers of one of Springfield’s oldest homes are demanding that the city demolish the gutted apartment building that lacks a roof and large portions of its exterior walls.
“This was the straw that broke the camel’s back, when someone was almost hurt,” says Richard Hart, an attorney who serves on the board of the Elijah Iles House Foundation. “It just seems like it’s been sitting there, with nothing getting done.”
In a Sept. 9 letter to Mayor Mike Houston and the city council, James W. Patton, foundation president, says that a storm window came crashing down from the top story of Knox Flats on Aug. 27. In the letter, Patton says that the window “barely missed hitting” a woman who was working in an herb garden behind the Iles House at the corner of East Cook and South Seventh streets, adjacent to Knox Flats and just south of the Lincoln Home National Historic Site.
Gary Lazar, chairman of a group of volunteers who maintain the Iles House garden, says the window fell after the woman went inside Iles House. When she came back to the garden, Lazar said that she found the window had fallen where she had been working.
“There was shattered glass everywhere,” Lazar said. “There’s people there all the time. It had the potential of really hitting someone.”
It wasn’t the first time a window has fallen from the dilapidated building that is home to both vagrants and varmints. Lazar says that he’s seen raccoons and possums emerge from the building and has also seen homeless people sleeping there. Last spring, he says, a window plummeted from the east side of the building, littering an alley with glass.
“We’ve had debris coming off the roof previously,” Lazar said. “Now, we’ve got windows coming down.”
The city sued the building owner more than two years ago, asking a judge for a demolition order. Sangamon County Circuit Court Judge Pete Cavanagh granted one in the spring of 2012, but John Eglaston, a Chicago area man who purchased the property for $75,000 in 2008, convinced Cavanagh to rescind the order. Eglaston, who could not be reached for comment, gave the court a report from an engineer who proclaimed the building structurally sound. When he purchased the building built in 1910, Eglaston vowed to convert the structure into apartments.
Hart says it’s time for action. “My objective is to just get the thing down (demolished) now,” Hart said. “It seems like there’s always going to be a hearing or ‘We’re waiting for a report.’ It all seems kind of absurd when you take a look at the building.”
City officials say they’ll ask for another demolition order at an Oct. 14 hearing before Cavanagh. The hearing was scheduled after city officials discovered that a window had fallen.
“That was sufficient to essentially decide he’s had enough time,” said assistant city attorney Steve Rahn. “We’re getting to the point where there’s a genuine concern about things falling off the building.”
Rahn says he will ask Cavanagh to give Eglaston 30 days to demolish the building himself. If the work isn’t completed on time, Rahn said that the city would then have authority to level the structure.
Mayor Mike Houston has boasted that his administration has stepped up the pace of demolitions in the city. This isn’t a typical case, Rahn said.
“The typical demolition case doesn’t have an owner who cares,” Rahn said. “This one does have an owner who contends that he is going to renovate the property and simply has not done that within an acceptable time frame.”
