Larry Riley

After I wrote about four phantom home demolitions performed last year on properties where no houses had stood for years, the city administration scrambled to clarify the invoices paid all had incorrect addresses on them.

All four mistaken. Yet paid nonetheless. No questions.

The contractor only demolished four properties that year, and all four invoices were made out with wrong addresses? And nobody from the city administration checked to see whether the invoices matched the work orders?

How fascinating.

All were coincidentally empty lots, though three of the four did have structures on them demolished prior to the Tyler administration.

Questions over razing structures

The “demolitions” and subsequent bills were all by Advanced Walls and Ceilings, a company owned by the city’s own building commissioner Craig Nichols. Nichols’ office would oversee demolitions by anyone of properties in Muncie for which a permit is needed. From his office.

So instead of 527 S. Elliott St., the real address was 527 W. Wilson.

Not 1000 North Wolfe, but 909 South Wolfe. North, south, oh well. Not 439 South Proud, but 424 South Proud. 439, 424, what’s in a number?

Who couldn’t make these mistakes? Why, that’s how doctors wind up amputating the wrong leg all the time.

I’m not sure how 746 N. Elm got written instead of 320 S. Beacon, but oh well again.

Still, several observations emerge.

For starters, these four demolitions were “emergencies” done last year, paid for last year, and never brought before the Muncie Public Board of Works and Safety.

I kinda thought that since the demos were paid for by the mayor’s own economic development income tax fund, over which he has complete discretion, he could bypass the board of works.

On another hand, you’d think that a building commissioner whose office adjudges a structure unsafe, and declares an emergency, would have a conflict doing the demolition for pay.

Using EDIT money on demolitions is odd, too. The city has three other routine funds for demolition.

Yet at the first board of works meeting after I wrote about these invoices, the administration was on hand asking retroactive approval for last year’s emergency demolitions and costs.

Since these were emergencies, the city only took “quotes” from two invited firms, not bids that would have been open to any contractor.

Each demolition had quotes from Advanced Walls and from a firm out of Redkey by the name of Gibbs Construction, which I had never heard of, nor am I sure anybody ever has.

For sure, at the same Redkey address lives a man named Gibbs, part of a family that’s been closely affiliated with Democratic Party Headquarters in Muncie for more than a generation.

He does pour concrete, and last year earned $148,000 from the city, mostly street department projects. Payments were to him individually, not Gibbs Construction.

Maybe he was hoping to break into demolition work with a new firm, but his business is not listed as any kind of company with the Indiana Secretary of State.

Certainly having him give quotes to compare with Advanced Walls helped the latter immensely, as each Gibbs Construction quote was even higher, usually a few hundred bucks, than the unduly high Advanced Walls quote. Thus a cost conscious administration went with the lower quote.

The four demolitions averaged $20,375 each, or more specifically:

-- 527 W. Wilson, an 850 square-foot house with no basement, razed for $22,000 by Advanced Walls.

-- 424 S. Proud St., 1,700 square feet, two stories, plus 400 square-foot detached garage, for $19,500.

-- 320 S. Beacon, 1,216 square feet, no basement, for $19,500.

-- 909 S. Wolfe St., 964 square feet, half basement, for $21,500.

Let’s put this in perspective with other demolitions last year.

A house at 708 W. Charles of 1,134 square feet with a partial basement, went down for $4,448 by another contractor.

A deconstruction at 1009 W. Charles was done for $8,960. Deconstructions are always higher than demolitions, but are preferable because building materials are systematically removed and recycled, not torn down and dumped into landfills. Contractors willing to do deconstructions are typically allowed to be 20-25 percent higher in most city bids.

Or contrast with some of these:

-- A home in Halteman Village at 2807 W. Wellington Drive, with 4,148 square feet and no basement (but a large shed and two attached patios) contracted for demolition by Shroyer Bros. Inc., for $3,906.

-- At 1701 E. Centennial Ave., a 1,524 square-foot story-and-a-half house was demolished last year by the Shroyer Brothers for $3,626.

-- The Community Development office demolished a house at 217 S. Council last year contracting with Rebuilding Our Community, a nonprofit organization that does more renovations than demos. Razing of that two-story, 1,632 square-foot house cost $4,730. Rebuilding Our Community did a deconstruction last year, a multi-family apartment, 2,650 square-foot house with a basement at 506 W. Adams St., for $12,090. As I said, decons are usually more than demos.

Except at Advanced Walls’ demolition rates.

Invoices for Advanced Walls still go to a rental property outside Yorktown, but Angie’s List shows Advanced Walls now in a house on Pittenger Road south of Selma, which is where Muncie’s building commissioner bought a home 18 months ago.

The city administration evidently doesn’t require department heads to live inside the city that pays them. And, in this case, pays their private company.

Larry Riley teaches English at Ball State University. Email him at lriley@bsu.edu.