Lock Haven Moving Forward with Town Tavern Demolition Plans

LOCK HAVEN – City council at its meeting Monday, Nov. 5 is expected to award the bid for demolition of the former Town Tavern building on Bellefonte Avenue. That action is seen as the next step in the city’s desire to create a nearly half acre of developable commercial land in the downtown.

The city opened four bids last Monday, the apparent low bidder Masters Excavating, LLC of Lock Haven in the amount of $52,797.

The city in September had purchased the Town Tavern building from previous owner Dave Mayes, the cost $10,000 plus $1,519 in unpaid 2017 taxes. The city also added the adjacent former Earl Kennedy Jr. building at a Clinton County judicial sale, also in September, for the county-set minimum of $100. That same sale saw the city purchase the former Heilig-Meyers site for $100; the Heilig-Meyers plot is across Willards Alley from the Town Tavern and would complete the nearly half acre holding.

City manager Greg Wilson recently told therecord-online that once the two existing structures are leveled, the frontage along with the already leveled Heilig-Meyers plot will be cleaned up and marketed. Wilson said the city could then hold a public auction or accept sealed bids towards getting the land back on the tax rolls. That would not preclude, he said, a developer coming forward in the interim with a development proposal.

Wilson had said earlier the Heilig-Meyers purchase was part of the process to make sure the city investment in the cost of razing the building is protected. The city has spent more than $60,000 to clean-up that fire damaged site.