In late July, Highland Park Improvement Club trustees hosted a farewell gathering to say goodbye to their century-old building, on what was supposed to be the eve of its demolition, next phase of their rebuilding project after a fire three years ago. They explained to those gathered that a few late-breaking bumps in the permit process meant the teardown wasn’t imminent after all.

Six weeks later, the old building is still standing. So we asked HPIC trustees about the status. Here’s the explanation we received from Kay Kirkpatrick:

As you know, we were initially shooting for demo early in August, but we ran into a couple of delays with permitting, scheduling and the like. We also found out that we had asbestos elements in the old building, so we needed to get an abatement plan in place for that. So our target is now mid-Sept to get the hazardous materials removed, then our demo contractor can do the big job – pulling down the burned hall. The current plan is to get all this completed before the end of the month of September.

Bottom line, you should see work at the 12th/Holden site soon. They’re also still fundraising for the new building.