ELKHART — Pieces of the old Walter Piano building at 700 W. Beardsley Ave. aren’t in danger of falling into the street, but the building is falling in on itself.

The city of Elkhart is trying to get ownership of the property in order to use a brownfield grant to demolish the structure.

“We’re working on getting a hold of that, getting that into our control,” Mayor Dick Moore said recently.

City officials have adopted a resolution to accept transfer of the property and 25 others following the county’s unsuccessful 2011 tax sale of the properties. The county commissioners have yet to adopt the joint resolution.

According to the Elkhart County Treasurer’s Office, State Realty Corp. of Rego Park, N.Y., owes $61,023.24 in back taxes on the property.

It appears to have been listed as part of the county’s tax sale several times.

Once the commissioners adopt the resolution, the county will transfer the tax certificate to the city. “We go through the legal process of notifying the property owners one last time,” said Crystal Welsh, community and redevelopment manager for the city of Elkhart, giving them a deadline to redeem the property.

Then the city has to go to court to get the tax deeds. Once that’s done — between six and 12 months — it becomes the city’s property, Welsh said.

The owner hasn’t been “overly cooperative” with the city, Moore said. “It’s an owner that doesn’t really care very much about it.”

Moore said he’s been assured by structural engineers on several occasions that the building may fall in, but “it’s not going to fall out into the street.”

The city paid for fencing around the property for some time, but got rid of it when engineers said it wasn’t necessary. “It was pretty costly,” Moore said.

The property has had a code enforcement Order to Take Action notice against it that is at least two years old, said Welsh.

“It’s not a safe building to be in. It’s not something that can be rehabbed. It’s in total disrepair,” said Dennis Correll, the city’s brownfields coordinator, who recently inspected the building from the air in an aerial fire truck.

The city has designated leftover brownfield money from LaBour Pump and the Elkhart Foundry for use to tear down the structure.

“We don’t know what’s in the ground. It’s hard to tell. We can’t tell until we take the building down,” Correll said.

It’s unsafe to let the driller inside the facility, he added.

One person showed an interest in demolishing the property for salvage, but that waned.

“We went through it and there’s not enough salvage ...” Correll said.

After the city obtains ownership and tears down the building, officials can start talking about redevelopment. The area is zoned for manufacturing or commercial. “We need to know what kind of environmental conditions are on site before we can make decisions on proposing a reuse for the property,” Welsh said.

The property is assessed for $197,100, according to the property record card.

The Indiana Secretary of State’s Office lists the address for State Realty — a for-profit foreign corporation — as Louisville, Ky. However, the status for the business entity is “revoked” as of Dec. 15, 2010. The entity was created in 2007 in Kentucky, but created in 1997 in New York. The registered agent for the company is Daniel Pinkhasov, 700 W. Beardsley Ave., Elkhart.

Corporate reports are due for 2009-10 and 2011-12, according to the secretary of state’s website. However, it also notes: “This business entity is not eligible to receive a certificate of existence/authorization.”

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