The Parker Hotel was mostly gone and West Main Street in Hillsboro was reopened to traffic by late Friday afternoon.
The demolition of the building in the 100 block of West Main Street that caused the street to be closed for seafety reasons met two brief delays, but came down quickly after work resumed Thursday.
Although some preliminary work started a few days earlier, the actual demolition was supposed to begin Feb. 29, but was delayed until the following day because the back corner of an adjacent building was found to be in poor condition and needed to be stabilized before the demolition continued.
Then on Tuesday this week the city of Hillsboro said in an email that “Due to unforeseen circumstances with the party wall during the demolition of 137 W. Main Street, the demolition has been put on hold. We are working diligently to resolve, and continue demolition as soon as possible.”
The party wall is a wall shared by the Parker Hotel — the structure being taken down — and the Parker House, immediately to the east.
The city said at the time it could not release any further information about the problem with the party wall, and on Friday Hillsboro Mayor Justin Harsha reiterated that statement.
“The only thing we can say is that when we got into the project further, some of wall had deteriorated more than we thought,” Harsha said. “We’ll be addressing that issue in the future.
“I’m just glad the Parker Hotel is on the ground and that the danger is out of the way.”
The mayor said that the issue with the wall should be “worked on in the very near future,” and that people displaced from apartments during the demolition should have been back in their homes by Friday evening.
Reach Jeff Gilliland at 937-402-2522.
