Strong winds Monday toppled the back half of the Levin Brothers building at Main Street and Mitchell Avenue.More than $400,000 of cleanup and stabilization at the Levin Brothers building was erased during Monday’s storm when winds up to 70 mph took out the back half of the historic Main Street structure, according to news reports.
Owner Joe Sliger said that he wasn’t particularly upset by the loss.
“Some guy called me and asked, ‘What were your true feelings, what were your emotions,'” Sliger said. “I said what is this, Dr. Phil? The building fell, I’m not glad of it, but it’s not a tragedy. It happens.”
As TV stations as far as Nashville carried footage of 100-year-old bricks littering the street Monday evening, Sliger already was planning his next move.
Thomas Johnson Architecture is working on a plan that will reuse the existing portion of the building, which will resemble a 53-foot-by-43-foot box when completed, said architect Thomas Johnson.
Johnson has been putting together plans for the building since he created one for Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise in 1991, though none have been implemented fully.
“Mr. Levin was still there the first day I measured it; he was packing up his stuff,” Johnson said. “Had they cleaned up those leaks, someone could have moved in the next day.”
Instead, the building stood vacant for a decade under CNE’s ownership, before it was sold, and sold again to Sliger after rotting for another four years, he said.
When it was in use, the structure was a clothing store that catered to railroad workers, Johnson said.
Demolition of the current wreck will take about three weeks, and the building should take about three months to reconstruct once work begins, Sliger added.
“Probably two or three months we’ll have the floor system, the roof, and the back wall,” said Sliger.
As he has done with other restoration projects, Sliger said he will hold off on finishing it until a tenant tells him what he or she is looking for.
“When I lease a building to somebody, I’ll finish to their specifications and bring it up to code,” he said.
It will cost another $120,000 to fix the current mess, and probably another $200,000 to complete the building for tenant use.
As for the piles of loose bricks that fell when the building crumbled, “You’ve got enough out there to build a subdivision,” Johnson said.