UPDATED: West Main Street reopens to traffic as Parker Hotel ‘mostly on the ground’ – The Highland County Press

West Main Street in Hillsboro reopened to traffic Friday evening, with the Parker Hotel almost completely demolished.

Although crews are still working to clear the former building site, barriers were taken down Friday, and the fence blocking the demolition area was moved out of the roadway. Traffic was yielding to the last of Evans Constructions work crews before shutting down for the evening, shortly after 5 p.m.

The closure of West Main Street in uptown Hillsboro was extended by several days as a result of extenuating circumstances following a building demolition that began on Feb. 24, the Ohio Department of Transportation said this week.

As previously reported, the city of Hillsboro said 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.

After encountering some delays on Wednesday, Feb. 26 the day of the Parker Hotels planned demolition crews from Evans Landscaping had continued working on bringing the building down until the most recent delay.

Meanwhile, West Union attorney David Osborne, Jr. told The Highland County Press on Friday, March 6 that Evans Landscaping has been taking down parts of the building that houses Momma's West Main Street Cafe, which has been closed during the ongoing demolition.

On Friday morning, the west exterior wall of the restaurant building showed several openings and cracks in the wall.

Hillsboro mayor Justin Harsha said Friday afternoon that West Main Street would be open by the evening of March 6.

The Parker Hotel is mostly on the ground now, Harsha told The Highland County Press. The dangerous part of the demolition is over.

Harsha said crews from Evans Construction are working to clean the streets off in order to open U.S. 50 Friday night and help the city get back to normal.

Regarding neighboring structures, Harsha said that there was not really anything I can comment right now, although he spoke about the ongoing issues with separating the hotel from its adjoining building, particularly in an area where a stairway corridor had been built where there formerly was an alley separating the building.

Thats kind of where we ran into some problems, Harsha said. It wasnt really part of the original structure. But were moving forward and got the dangerous building out of the way.

According to the city, Evans Landscaping invoiced the city $92,350 on Jan. 21 for the building demolition and cleanup. The city said at its Nov. 12, 2019 council meeting Evans Landscaping provided an estimate of $97,000 for the former hotels demolition.

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UPDATED: West Main Street reopens to traffic as Parker Hotel 'mostly on the ground' - The Highland County Press