ALBIA, Iowa — One year after a historic building in Albia’s town square was destroyed in a fire, another historic building partially collapsed, causing road closures.
Around 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, the Albia Fire Department was called to Benton Avenue on the town square for reports of a partially collapsed building. The first firefighters on scene saw bricks from the east wall of the historic Skean’s Block building have fallen onto Princeton Alley.
The fire department originally blocked off the alley, but more bricks continued to fall, and eventually, the roof started to cave in. The department taped off the entire block where the historic structure sat.
The city called this a “dangerous situation” on its Facebook page, and officials are urging residents to stay behind the caution tape in case the entire building collapses.
Fire Chief John Freshwater said no injuries were reported from the partial collapse, and the city wants to keep it that way. He also told WHO 13 News that the building won’t be demolished.
“[The owner] had a contractor in today and he believes he can try to stable the building to try to save it,” Freshwater said.
The building was constructed in 1889 and served different purposes for the town. Most recently, it was the Albia Brewing Company, a popular restaurant and brewery.
Owner, Brian Lindberg said he opened it in 2012, but closed it two years ago. Lindberg said he worked a full-time job, so he only had the restaurant open part-time every Wednesday through Saturday. After his head chef and another business partner passed away, Lindberg said he couldn’t find replacements and decided to close the restaurant. The building has been on the market since then.
“It’s a turnkey restaurant and Albia needs this. It needs it open, but we’ve had our run with it and we had a good business even being open part time,” he told WHO 13 News. He went on to say, “Somebody needs to take this thing and run with it. They need to have a dream. This restaurant can support a family and they can live upstairs.”
To do that, though, the building will first need to be restored, and Lindberg said he’s expecting the process to be expensive. He said everything from the basement floor to the ceiling will be shored up before a full restoration begins.
“[The] interior can be saved. This east wall and the exterior, it’s going to have to be all redone. There’s a section above the windows that’s still needing to come down, and it’s nice if it would go ahead and come down. Careful what you wish for, but it needs to come down. This whole east wall is going to be replaced,” Lindberg told WHO 13 News.
Lindberg also said that even though he closed his business a couple of years ago, he continued to maintain the building. He said he recently spent nearly $50,000 to tuckpoint the building’s bricks. He said crews finished the entire south and east sides and were nearly finished with the north side.
“The sad thing is we had already done all this work. It didn’t have to be done. Anybody could keep passing the buck as far as the maintenance of these buildings,” he said.
Lindberg said he’s unsure what caused the building to start collapsing.
Crews brought in equipment on Monday afternoon, and the restoration process is expected to begin on Tuesday. Freshwater says Benton Avenue will likely remain closed through the end of the week.
The partial collapse of the former Albia Brewing Company is now renewing conversations about the upkeep of historic buildings on Albia’s town square. Just over one year ago, another historic building in Albia was destroyed in a deadly fire.
The R.O. Cramer building housed businesses and apartments. Now, it’s an empty lot on the town square. Freshwater told WHO 13 News on Monday that because of the extensive damage to that building, the cause of the fire was deemed unknown.