A building that has long been a part of downtown Kokomo’s landscape will remain intact, but undergo extensive demolition, after being purchased by a company that has been active in the city’s redevelopment efforts.
The Barko building, also known as the old W.H. Turner Building located at 114-116 W. Walnut St., has been sold to downtown developer KipCor and will be repaired with the help of a forgivable $240,000 loan provided by the city to make the site structurally safe and compliant with city and state regulations.
The building suffered extensive damage after its back wall collapsed on June 4. Structural engineers, hired by the building’s owner James Vogel, have since worked to evaluate the structure.
Initially, the city thought the building had suffered too much damage from moisture seeping into its bricks and mortar. In 2003, the roof partially collapsed before Vogel purchased it and began efforts to make repairs.
Since the collapse at the rear of the building, Kokomo Mayor Greg Goodnight said the city received two quotes for emergency demolition — one in excess of $350,000 and the other more than $400,000 — leaving it with few good options for the future of the structure.
“The issue was that it was more expensive to tear it down completely,” Goodnight said. “The problem is that the owner didn’t have any resources to do the repairs. We basically had an unsafe structure with an owner not having the wherewithal to demo it.”
As a result, Vogel has surrendered the title to the three-story building over to KipCor, which is involved with several redevelopment projects in the downtown area.
To incentivize the preservation of the structure, Goodnight said the city offered a forgivable loan and reached out to between six and eight developers, both local and regional, to gauge interest in repairing the building, which was constructed in 1872.
“We went beyond local developers,” Goodnight said. “We went to some of our contacts in Indianapolis to see what interest there was in taking this on.”
In a memorandum to the Kokomo Board of Public Works and Safety, City Attorney Lawrence McCormack stated even with the forgivable loan, “the city will receive a considerable savings from the cost of demolishing the building and creating an eyesore on our downtown square.”
Goodnight said the immediate plan for the building is to demolish the rear side and begin rebuilding the structure from the inside out.
“More importantly, we wanted to make sure we had a good final product,” he said. “We don’t want a pile of bricks or an empty lot. We want a nice building that complements the surrounding buildings.”