When a building is torn down, most of the time it's done to make room for something else. Sometimes, though, the structure has simply outlived its useful life.
That's the case with the house at 1130 Northview Road, which was torn down last week. "It finally got to the point where the maintenance was outweighing the benefit of it," said Karen Braun, the Waukesha County engineer who oversaw the demolition project.
The house, which was owned by the county, had most recently been leased to Matt Talbot Recovery Services, an organization that offers drug and alcohol rehab programs. The house was used as a group home for recovering addicts.
Over the last few weeks, the company hired to tear down the house, Sonag Concrete, has been salvaging any materials that could be re-used, including the radiators. The county paid Sonag $23,802 for the demolition work.
The county has no plans to rebuild or do anything else with the property at this time, Braun said. Once the demolition is complete, the hole where the basement used to be will be filled and seeded, and the property will become an empty lot.
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