Building demolition back on track

The demolition of a condemned building on Spokane Way that once belonged to a local inventor seems likely to happen this summer after about three years of delays. 

 The Grand Coulee City Council approved a bid for the demolition of the “Vlachos” building at their May 18 meeting, as well as for an asbestos survey to be conducted prior to the demolition. 

The building, once belonging to inventor and mechanic Constantinos Vlachos, has been boarded up and abandoned for years.

In 2018, the Coulee Pioneer Museum recovered some items from the premises, including the bare bones of a car known as the Phibian which Vlachos had invented, a vehicle that he said could run on water rather than petroleum.

The asbestos survey will be conducted by A1 Asbestos out of Wenatchee and will cost the city about $780. The demolition bid accepted was for $8,563.60 from ALMAG, Inc, a Chelan-based company. 

City Clerk Lorna Pearce said demolition is likely to take place in June or July. 

Only the main building on the property, located along the street and in a decrepit condition, will be demolished, with separate buildings behind it not being condemned. 

The demolition of the building has been a long time in the works, with the city first going to bid for demolition in 2018, then facing delays. 

After being declared dangerous in August of 2018, the city went through a process of giving the owner notice to remedy the danger, and time to accomplish that. 

“After the time has passed, the city then has to actually file a motion in Superior Court to allow the city to abate the problem,” Pearce explained to The Star. “There were some issues in originally getting the motion filed; and then once it was filed, the courts ‘lost’ the paperwork, and then COVID hit, and the courts were not hearing cases.”