Sidewalks surrounding the former Brownwood Hotel at 200 Fisk Avenue are off limits to pedestrian traffic.  A temporary fence is in place due to the potential of falling glass from the building’s windows.

After meeting in executive session Tuesday morning, the Brownwood City Council unanimously approved to expend unbudgeted funds in an amount up to $49,000 for remediation of hazards at the site.

To this point, the hotel property owner Myrna Phelps – who resides in Virginia – has yet to attempt to make any improvements despite being assessed a $19,500 fine in February, along with an additional $500 per day fine that kicked in April 5.

“We have requested that the property owner remediate the falling glass in the hotel property, and as of today that work has not begun yet,” Brownwood City Manager Emily Crawford said following Tuesday morning’s meeting. “The City does have the ability to go in and provide the remediation ourselves, but in order to do that we would have to expend a significant amount of funds. What this action today allows the City to do, if we so choose, is we would be able to go in and do the remediation, which would be removing the windows on Fisk and Baker and putting up plywood in their place. The cost has been authorized by the council today should we need to do that if the property owner continues to no take action.”

Crawford added the reason the city council took action is due to the safety issues that have become involved with the neglect of the property.

“We would certainly not prefer to spend public funds on private property, however, this is a public safety issue so we would like to give the property owner a little time to be able to respond,” Crawford said. “But if we don’t see any activity in the next few weeks we will likely proceed.”

If the property owner continues to take no action, Crawford said, “The City places a lean on the property for the amount of funds that were expended to remediate the safety issue. At that point, it become a legal debt that the property owner would have to ensure is paid.”

Regarding a potential long-term solution, Crawford again pointed to the ownership of the property potentially changing hands in the future.

“We have had private interest in purchasing the property and certainly our hope is the property would be restored to a usable condition, then the safety hazard would be remediated,” Crawford said.

(story courtesy Derrick Stuckly of Brownwoodnews.com)