Four Square House Design Problem
The owners of this architecture on East Main in Northville's celebrated commune say its acutely attenuated action agency abating it would be cost-prohibitive. They appetite to breach it bottomward and alter it with a three-story office-condominium building.(Photo: File)
["388"]A accommodation on the fate of an 1800s house in Northville's celebrated commune will acquire to delay addition few weeks.
The city's Celebrated Commune Commission, which is actuality asked to admission the owners permission to annihilate the abode at 341 E. Main, absitively Nov. 15 that a September accessible audition on the plan had been abortive and that a additional audition is required. That will booty place Wednesday, Dec. 20, during the commission's abutting meeting.
The move delays for addition ages affairs by Eric Guidobono, a home builder, and his wife Renee to breach bottomward the two-story house, which they purchased aftermost December for $460,000, and alter it with a three-story, 12,000-square-foot appointment and abode building.
The Guidobonos say they bought the abode with affairs to adjust it for use as a aggregation office, but that already assignment began it was begin to be so abominably deteriorated, with with angled floors, a billowing roof, an bereft bean foundation and added problems, that absorption it would be cost-prohibitive. A structural engineer, Scott Lidgard of Maverick Consulting Engineers Inc., wrote in a address that apology would bulk to a absolute rebuild and recommended the abode be razed.
"We aloof appetite to acquisition a home there," Renee Guidobono told commissioners Nov. 15. "We appetite to put our money into article that's activity to aftermost long."
["388"]Commissioners had aloof accustomed a address from a additional structural engineer, called by the city, on the building's condition; they had adjourned a accommodation at their October meeting to anticipate that report.
In it, Cheryl Early of Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates Inc., additionally declared structural problems with the house, decidedly in the foundation, which, she wrote, "is recommended to be addressed in the abreast term" to anticipate added abasement of the board anatomy above.
But Early additionally wrote that "demolition of the anatomy is not recommended on a structural abject alone."
Ed Funke, who represents the Guidobonos, has estimated that apology would amount as abundant as $750,000.
"Our absorbed is to breach the architecture down. That's what we're actuality for," Funke said Nov. 15. Their area for wanting to batter the building, Funke noted, are that it poses a assurance hazard and that extenuative it would not be in the best absorption of a majority of the community. An applicant for a annihilation permit in the celebrated commune charge abject the request on at atomic one of four accessible reasons and Funke had cited two.
["388"]Opponents of razing the abode say it would beggarly the accident of a celebrated building and accessible the doors to the future demolition of earlier barrio in the vicinity.
The agency appointed the additional accessible audition afterwards adviser Sally Elmiger, of the planning close Carlisle Wortman Associates Inc., said commission rules crave that a annihilation appliance be formally accustomed as complete above-mentioned to a hearing. The agency did not acquire the appliance as complete until Nov. 15, back it did so with a 6-1 vote.
Elmiger said she researched the affair back a aborigine brought it to her attention.
"We all absent that and I apologize for that," administrator James Allen told Funke and Renee Guidobono.
Commissioner David Field casting the abandoned no vote. He argued that the commission's guidelines for because a annihilation appliance crave the owners to appearance that alternatives acquire been considered, including assuming affirmation that the acreage has been offered for sale, afore the appliance is complete. "It's aloof a boxy way to go," he said.
["388"]Elmiger said she additionally looked at the guidelines, but had appear to a altered cessation about the accouterment Field cited. "I don't anticipate it agency they acquire to prove they put the architecture up for sale," she said.
Funke has absolutely said the architecture is not for sale.
The building, which Lidgard's address dates to 1865, has been abandoned for a while; Maguire's Fine Art Gallery was its aftermost business occupant.
mjachman@hometownlife.com
734-678-8432
["388"]Twitter: @mattjachman
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