Top Stories of 2017: Tekoa building collapses, remains

Last winter’s perpetual snow took a toll on Tekoa in late January when the roof of the former Cohn Motors building on Crosby Street collapsed.

An estimated 1,200-foot section of its roof and part of two walls fell onto its second floor.

Keith Andersson of Tekoa has owned the property since 2006.

Controversy over the pace of the cleanup and what to do to secure the building led to Mayor John Jaeger appointing a Tekoa unfit building committee, consisting of three volunteers who began work in late July.

Referring to the town’s unfit dwellings code, the committee finalized their report in November and sent it to the city. Designating it an unfit building, the ruling led to an appeal filed by Andersson before the Dec. 9 deadline.

The city has rented a protective fence since June, the week before the Slippery Gulch Days celebration, to seal off the property and errant bricks on the sidewalk.

The Cohn building also once served as the Redfern & Sons Motor Company. Built before 1902, the building has not been used as a business since Redfern & Sons went out in the 1950s.