By Harlan Levy
Journal Inquirer
WINDSOR LOCKS — In complaining about the number of blighted properties in town last month, a score of residents urged the Board of Selectmen to make progress on foreclosing on perhaps the biggest blight of them all, the long-vacant Montgomery building complex, the three-structure eyesore on Canal Road.
Indeed, the process is moving along — albeit at a snail’s pace — in the town’s effort to foreclose on, sell, and collect about $300,000 in liens on the building owed to the town by the site’s owners, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Mountain View Equities for equipment losses, expenses, and damages.
The owner also owes about $100,000 to private parties.
A year and a half ago the town started foreclosure proceedings against Mountain View, which bought the more than 100-year-old former wire product manufacturer, intending to convert it to luxury condominiums.
That effort never came to fruition. Since then the investment group has amassed an unpaid tax bill of more than $217,000.
In an update, First Selectman Steven Wawruck said that in October an appraiser set the value of the building at about $900,000. The next step is to go before a judge at Hartford Superior Court.
“The town attorney has filed all the proper paperwork and is just awaiting the motions to be heard in the court,” Wawruck said. “Once it’s brought to the Superior Court docket, it looks like there will be a ruling in default, because there has been no representation by the owners.”
If the owners don’t respond by paying their debts, Wawruck said, “we can move forward with the sale of the property itself, because nobody on the board wants the town to own that building.
The liability issues, the hazardous environmental concerns are things the town shouldn’t have to incur.”
The town has had its share of recent troubles with the unsightly hulk.
In late April three local teenagers were charged with arson in connection with a suspicious fire on April 11 at the compound, which took firefighters from half a dozen towns more than eight hours to quell. The fire was confined to the former Fuller Russell Tobacco sorting house on the east side of the main building and did not spread to the main or third buildings. The fire caused no injuries. The building was badly damaged but not destroyed.
In July 2006, another fire, started by an arsonist, devastated the northern portion of the complex.
The town lost $51,000 of the fire department’s equipment in that fire, and a lien was placed on the building because it had no insurance.
Indeed, the process is moving along — albeit at a snail’s pace — in the town’s effort to foreclose on, sell, and collect about $300,000 in liens on the building owed to the town by the site’s owners, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Mountain View Equities for equipment losses, expenses, and damages.
The owner also owes about $100,000 to private parties.
A year and a half ago the town started foreclosure proceedings against Mountain View, which bought the more than 100-year-old former wire product manufacturer, intending to convert it to luxury condominiums.
That effort never came to fruition. Since then the investment group has amassed an unpaid tax bill of more than $217,000.
In an update, First Selectman Steven Wawruck said that in October an appraiser set the value of the building at about $900,000. The next step is to go before a judge at Hartford Superior Court.
“The town attorney has filed all the proper paperwork and is just awaiting the motions to be heard in the court,” Wawruck said. “Once it’s brought to the Superior Court docket, it looks like there will be a ruling in default, because there has been no representation by the owners.”
If the owners don’t respond by paying their debts, Wawruck said, “we can move forward with the sale of the property itself, because nobody on the board wants the town to own that building.
The liability issues, the hazardous environmental concerns are things the town shouldn’t have to incur.”
The town has had its share of recent troubles with the unsightly hulk.
In late April three local teenagers were charged with arson in connection with a suspicious fire on April 11 at the compound, which took firefighters from half a dozen towns more than eight hours to quell. The fire was confined to the former Fuller Russell Tobacco sorting house on the east side of the main building and did not spread to the main or third buildings. The fire caused no injuries. The building was badly damaged but not destroyed.
In July 2006, another fire, started by an arsonist, devastated the northern portion of the complex.
The town lost $51,000 of the fire department’s equipment in that fire, and a lien was placed on the building because it had no insurance.
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