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Keeler Building - 56 North Division


joeDowntown

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“The city has grown increasingly concerned about the condition of the areaway,” said Catherine Mish, city attorney. “If a vehicle, for example, were to hop the curb and go onto that sidewalk, it would fall through.”

 

Wow, that would be bizarre to see.

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It looks like they have been sparring with him since 08'.   Do you think they will try and force him to do something,  or force the development like in the case of the S. Division buildings?   I hope so,  this guy needs to be out of the downtown real estate business. 

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The city needs to go to war with this guy, and dont stop until he either sells this building or goes broke. This type of neglect is utterly unacceptable. fine him 1,000.00 a day if you have to.

 

And start poking at the guy that owns that boarded-up building next to Richmond Stamping too.

 

Amen. Azzar and his various companies own a multitude of boarded up properties around the city. I'm not sure how to wrest the buildings from his hands without infringing on property rights, but something has to be done.

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The city needs to go to war with this guy, and dont stop until he either sells this building or goes broke. This type of neglect is utterly unacceptable. fine him 1,000.00 a day if you have to.

 

I don't think the city has enough money to run him broke.  Now, why they don't impose massive fines, you got me there. 

 

What does bother me is the line in the story that he was willing to shore it up, and the city refused the offer because they want it filled in and squabbled over who would take ownership of the project.  I'm hoping there was a lot more to it than that.  There are lots of buildings with areaways under them that have not been repaired.

 

I feel bad for the city.  Dealing with this guy is not a lot of fun, to be charitable.  Good luck to them.

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Total slumlord. I hope he gets out of real estate and I dint have to hear his name again. I think if you went back to the early days of this forum, Azzar's name was already a four letter word. :)

616 wrangled the Kendall building out of his hands. Maybe they have the magic touch and could do the same with this building. :)

Joe

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I know you have personal experience with him. I hope this time he gets taken down. This guy makes my blood boil.

Joe

Strap yourselves in, this is going to be a long knock down drag out fight.  Azzar views litigation as sport and will take everything to the Michigan Supreme Court if he could.  The Keeler Building is multiple times bigger and more valuable than the Kendall building, this is gonna be a doozie.

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When I was riding by on Friday, the crews were finishing up installing the concrete barriers below the new fencing to block vehicles from being able to jump the curb.  They were similar to the barriers that were in front of the 42 S. Division buildings that were recently demolished.

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Strap yourselves in, this is going to be a long knock down drag out fight.  Azzar views litigation as sport and will take everything to the Michigan Supreme Court if he could.  The Keeler Building is multiple times bigger and more valuable than the Kendall building, this is gonna be a doozie.

 

Yep, and unfortunately no reason to think he can't continue to be successful throwing roadblocks in the way.  As the downtown continues to thrive his property only becomes more valuable.  He must be one of the biggest cheerleaders as to what's happening downtown.  Oh the irony.

 

ps he must be a hermit.  Notice the date of the file photo?

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  • 7 months later...

This is a total farce.

 

How is the city just sitting by and allowing this? I know the court process can be a slow one, but this is clearly just a nut that is giving the finger to the city and everyone around him. He is blocking a public sidewalk and his clear neglect is creating a situation where that could have easily been a place an innocent person would have been standing!

 

This crap should have been cleared up long ago, and now we have chunks of the building falling off. Maybe it will take a series of lawsuits by AT&T, Kendal, Fountain Street Church, The Fitzgerald, the Civic Theater, and whomever owns the building directly across the street. This has to be driving down their property values.

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Just to be sure I’ve got this straight… the owners of McKay Tower spruce up their roof and refurbish that rusting metal structure so that it is clean and covered with interesting lights and the city immediately leaps into action to put the kibosh on any type of effort to have those lights change color or display a message like “Go Griffins” or “ArtPrize”.  Azzar let’s this building rot.  The public sidewalk is closed because there’s a hole in it and now the building is dropping chunks of brick/concrete and the city moves at a glacial pace to address the situation.

 

I know I’m being a little overly dramatic but really, is the message here that if you improve a building you could get your hand slapped but if you let it rot then, you know, we’ll get around to addressing it someday?

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  • 1 month later...

I just don't trust Azzar. I feel like he's either going to want a huge sum of money that nobody will pay for the building or he's using this to say "see, I'm TRYING to do something with this building". I'll believe it when I see it (and I really hope I'm wrong). 

Joe

I really hope you're wrong too. This part of downtown could really see a surge if the county building and the Keeler building see some re-use. I sure am glad the city denied the request for a parking lot. I had forgotten about that. I am going to stay optimistic since this is the furthest this building as been towards reclamation since Azzar has owned it.

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I really hope you're wrong too. This part of downtown could really see a surge if the county building and the Keeler building see some re-use. I sure am glad the city denied the request for a parking lot. I had forgotten about that. I am going to stay optimistic since this is the furthest this building as been towards reclamation since Azzar has owned it.

Me too! Just a little gunshy with all the things he has done to people in the past...

Joe

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  • 1 month later...

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