Starke County may soon be able to move ahead with the demolition of a dilapidated San Pierre building. The former San Pierre Bank has become a safety concern for the community, to the point where the county has had to install barriers around the building.
But until now, contacting the owner of the property has been a bit of a challenge for County Building Inspector Terry Stephenson. “We finally got a proper address,” Stephenson told the Starke County Plan Commission Wednesday. “All the registered letters we’ve been sending have been coming back. He was in this week to pay taxes, and so they got an address from him. So we’ve sent a registered letter to try to get him to sign that property over to us, so we can get it cleaned up because it is just definitely an eyesore.”
Once the county takes possession of the property, it would then clear the way for demolition to proceed. The building is next to the former grocery store at the corner of Eliza and Broadway Streets and has not been occupied for several years.
