City of Longview prepares to demolish dangerous building

LONGVIEW, Texas (KLTV) - The City of Longview has declared a building owned by a defunct nonprofit is dangerous and needs to be fixed or torn down.

The building is located at Sixth and Methvin streets near downtown.

It is owned by the now defunct nonprofit Longview Community Theater Inc. The Longview Fire Department has put out two fires in the building which they believe were started by transients. The back of the building is open and not secured. The owners have been given 30 to 60 days to bring the building into compliance.

“Then at the end of that time period if there’s been no progress then the city’s normal course of action is to go in there and rectify the issue. Either board it up, secure it, or in this case it’s probably going to be to go ahead and finish tearing the building down and clean it up and eradicate that nuisance there,” said Longview Director of Development Services Michael Shirley.

The city believes the building was used for office space for the previous community theater group. There was no theater in the building.

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