Unless a buyer is found sometime between now and Labor Day weekend, it appears the EDA-owned Asian Market building on 3rd St. is destined to be razed.
The EDA board at last Wednesday’s meeting discussed the future of the building, which needs a new roof, as well as a considerable amount of work inside.
EDA Director Jeff Carpenter said the leak in the roof near the back end of the building has been, for now, taken care of, but that fix is nothing more than a patch. Carpenter received two bids to replace the roof, but the board wasn’t exactly exited about the prospect of paying someone to fix the roof of a building that might not have much of a future.
The outside back of the building also is in disrepair and needs attention.
“Do we want to go ahead and take that back piece off?” Carpenter asked. “Do you want me to get together some bids or just have somebody go in there? We’ve got two bids (for the roof) — one for $19,500, one for $22,000 — but my fear is — and I think some of your fears are — is when you seal that up with a new roof, if we do that, we’ll still have problems inside. It needs to be gutted on the inside.”
EDA member Sis Beierman asked if the owner of the Post Office is still interested in doing something with the building. Carpenter said if the City were to give him the building, he might be willing to pay half of the cost to demolish it, depending on the actual cost of demolition.
Beierman said she looked back over past EDA board minutes and saw that Tracy Public Works Director Shane Daniels noted that the floor joist is also compromised and rotting.
“I really see no sense in putting money in a roof, doing a floor, tearing off the back when we have nobody in line for it,” she said. “I just think it’s time to cut our losses on it and have it tore down.”
To take Beierman’s argument a step further, fellow board member Tom Morin added: “We don’t know if the heat works, we don’t know if the plumbing is any good. We’d have to gut it, which means all new wiring. You could have $50-$60,000 invested in that building. I see no point in doing that. I know that there was a wish to keep that building, but I agree with Sis — we need to get bids on tearing it down.”
Carpenter said he would like to hang a “for sale” sign in the front window through Box Car Days Weekend to see if “somebody wants to take a look at that building,” he said.