By Beacon Staff
The city of Burlington is beginning a six-month process to acquire the former Klein Center on Madison Avenue from its absentee owner.
Burlington City Manager Chad Bird said developers are interested in retooling the building — but no one is able to contact the owner. He informed the Burlington City Council of the difficulties during a council work session on Monday, April 10.
“We have a local developer who is working on a building in the community who has expressed interest in the building,” Bird said.
Bird said that has been particular interest in the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program. The owner has not answered the calls of any interested buyers, and tax liens against the building make it a nearly impossible prospect for development.
Bird said that acquiring the building through the 657A acquisition now would mean the city gets the building in October, putting it in line for a potential developer application in April 2024. The owner could contest it in that six months, and a judge will make the final decision.
“The question is, what do we do with it?” Bird said.
Demolition of the building would be a worst-case, last-ditch scenario. The council, who informally gave the go-ahead to start the acquisition process Tuesday night, would prefer to see the building developed. So would Bird.
Eric Tysland, parks and recreation director, said demolishing the building would cost about $1 million. If the city were to raze it, about 20 housing lots could be installed on the land.
The building is a hotspot for vandals.
The city has spent $33,000 on nuisance abatement. Since 2018, there have been 74 nuisance actions for the property, typically requiring multiple trips to the site to verify or follow up on each issue.
“There’s a lot of activity going on there,” Bird said.
The property has been placarded by city staff as abandoned/unsafe per City Code Chapter 160, with no response from the current owner.
The city would be taking on the property and costs associated with maintaining it, which it pretty much does now.
“I don’t want to be Captain Obvious, but whether we have it on paper or not, we own the building. We basically do. We’re taking short-term measures on the abatements now, whereas if we owned it, we could take some long-term measures for security. I do agree that the only way we can do something with this is to acquire the ownership of it,” Burlington Mayor Jon Billups said.