Batavia seeks to relocate or demolish historic Tin Shop building downtown

The City of Batavia is looking to get rid of a historic building downtown that is more than 140-years-old.

The Tin Shop building in Batavia was built in 1890 and is classified as “contributing” to the city’s downtown historic district. Because of the historic designation, the city must receive a Certificate of Appropriateness to allow for relocation or demolition of the building.

The city purchased Tin Shop building, a large two-story wooden structure built in 1890, at 106 N. River St. in 2017 as part of a $1.25 million acquisition of property on both sides of River Street between State and Franklin Streets.

The structures on the west side of the street along the river were torn down to construct a parking lot and make way for a planned mix use development by Shodeen Construction called One Washington Way, but the project was eventually terminated.

Since termination of the Shodeen development, the city has attempted to market the property to developers to convert it to mixed use residential and commercial space, as well as include the property in additional redevelopment plans – none of which panned out. Earlier this year, the city also proposed a rehabilitation project for the building, but after receiving several proposals, decided the cost was too high and terminated the project.

Since then, the building was used briefly by the Toy Drive for storage space, but has been vacant for several years.

According to the COA request submitted by Community and Economic Development Director Scott Buening, the Tin Shop is in poor condition due to a leaking roof and lack of use.

Batavia Building Commissioner Jeff Albertson presented the COA request on behalf of the city at the Batavia Historic Preservation Commission meeting on Dec. 9.

Albertson told the commission that the city has submitted multiple requests to developers to to convert the building into something useful, but the costs weren’t feasible. He said they are seeking the COA because of the building’s poor condition.

Albertson said their intention is to market the building to individuals to see if there is a desire to relocate the building to another site, either by dismantling and rebuilding or moving the building as a whole. If an interested party cannot be found, the city would then look to demolish the building.

Before the meeting, commission members toured the Tin Shop. Due to safety concerns over the excessive damage and poor condition, the building was deemed too dangerous for the public to tour and only one to two members were able to tour at a time.

After the tour, Commission Chair Phil Bus said he was amazed by the poor state of the building.

“It is so badly deteriorated, it was an eye opener for me,” Bus said.

Commission member Jamie Saam said the smell of mold was prevalent during the tours. She made the motion to recommend approval of the COA, with the caveat that if it ends up being demolished, the city salvage as much of the structure as possible.

Albertson read an email from Preservation Partners of the Fox Valley member Daniel Russo at the meeting, pleading for the commission to deny the COA request due to the building’s historical significance.

There were no comments from members of the public during the meeting.

Commission members recommended approval of the COA request in an unanimous vote.

The COA request is expected to come back before City Council for possible final approval in January.

The city also owns the adjacent garage at 112 N River St., and currently uses it for storing city equipment. Because the garage does not have historical significance, the city plans to seek a COA to demolish the structure if the COA is approved for the Tin Shop building.