The City of Fayette took a small step forward in its effort to force the owner of nearly a block of deteriorated downtown buildings to improve his properties. On the Wednesday following the January 19 city council meeting, the city attached notices on the doors of two buildings stating the city’s findings that the buildings are dangerous.

The city held a hearing on December 1 for Dan Ruether, the Columbia man who owns the buildings. Although Ruether declined to attend the hearing, the city found that based on engineering reports the buildings are unsafe and are now considered dangerous. The city council then gave Ruether, who was supposedly notified about the result of the hearing, a period of 30 days to submit a plan and begin work to make necessary repairs.

No plan has yet been submitted, although some repairs to an eight-year-old temporary roof have taken place. “They did a pretty good job of keeping the water out,” said Danny Dougherty, Fayette’s Building Inspector and Director of Public Works.

Dougherty told the council that he met with Ruether when those repairs were being made and was informed that when the weather improved a more permanent roof would be installed. Minor repairs were also made to a stairwell, he said.

The “temporary” roof was installed in February 2013 after the original roof collapsed under the weight of heavy snowfall.

“He had started again doing some work, not very much,” the city’s attorney Nathan Nickolaus told the council at its meeting on January 19. “We need to keep the pressure on him.”

“We’ve been asking him to give us a timeline, and he never has,” Nickolaus said.

The notices were placed on buildings located at 102 and 104 N. Church St., known as the Bell Block Building, and 114 and 116 N. Church Street. Another building owned by Mr. Ruether, which lies between those two buildings at 106 through 112 N. Church St., was not addressed at the hearing. Although the signs clearly read, “Do Not Remove This Notice Under Penalty of Law,” both signs posted on the Bell Block building, one of which was on the door to Fayette’s only laundromat, were taken down.

A “For Rent” sign appears in the doorway to the stairs which lead to second-story apartments of the Bell Block Building. Reportedly those apartments do not have heating, in violation of the city’s building codes. Northeast Ward Alderman Marc Wells reported to the council that he was informed by a tenant that the apartment in which he lives has no heat source. Tenets must use space heaters to keep warm.

“Nobody should be living there,” said Stephanie Ford, the council’s East Ward Alderwoman.

The notices, according to Nicholaus, do not order the tenants to vacate the apartments but serve as a warning to them that the building is dangerous. “I don’t think we’re at the point where we have to tell them to get out right now,” he said.

Council members discussed closing the laundromat but ultimately chose not to do so since it is the only public laundromat in town.

“I think that’s going to cause a lot of hardship to a lot of people,” said Southwest Ward Alderman Grafton Cook.

The conditions of these buildings came to the forefront of the city’s attention in February 2019 when bricks from the top of the Bell Block building’s south side fell to the sidewalk below. The city closed off the sidewalk to pedestrians until repairs were completed, which lasted nearly a year. 

Ruether told the city at the time the loose bricks had fallen, that he would make the repairs when the weather became warmer. But spring and summer came and went with continued neglect. The sidewalk remained closed while the city waited for the repairs to be made. Since then, businesses that formerly existed on the west side have relocated to other areas of downtown, leaving most of the Bell Block’s street-level storefronts vacant. Only the laundromat, which is owned by Ruether, remains.