Bellefonte Avenue Structure Clean-Up Delayed

LOCK HAVEN – City Hall efforts to finish the clean-up of the old Town Tavern site and adjacent structure have hit a wall. Actually, the problem is the lack of a wall.

Masters Excavating over the winter tore down the former Town Tavern site and has backfilled its basement. The snag is the adjacent former Earl Kennedy Jr. building at 53 Bellefonte Avenue. The city had purchased the abandoned Kennedy property for $100 at a county judicial sale last September. The plan was and is to include it in the demolition work for the Town Tavern location.

Demolition of the Kennedy site has been temporarily halted as it has been determined that an adjacent one-store structure at 55 Bellefonte Avenue does not have an exterior wall that adjoins the Kennedy site wall. City manager Greg Wilson told therecord-online that the contractor has been given an extension due to the delay in finding the appropriate way to complete the demolition at 53 Bellefonte Avenue. He said a construction engineer has been engaged to devise such a plan. The adjacent one-story building owner is listed as T & C Properties. Wilson said those owners have been kept abreast of the demolition developments.

Ultimately, once the Kennedy lot is cleared and filled, the city will own nearly half an acre of developable commercial land in the downtown. Wilson had said earlier once the Town Tavern/Kennedy site is cleared, that frontage along with the already leveled Heilig-Meyers plot will be 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.