Baxter Springs tears down downtown building - KOAM TV 7

A building that's served as a fixture in downtown Baxter Springs for decades is coming down.

Demolition work began on the building today on Military Avenue that housed many different businesses over the years.

The city says the owner of the building lives out of state and hasn't paid taxes on it in more than seven years.  It's been vacant for more than 10 years and a report recently determined the building to be unsafe, so the city decided it was time to take it down.

"We have had a recent engineering report done on the building because of our concerns and it was deemed that it was a public hazard - okay - safety hazard, and the engineer in his report stated it needed to come down immediately," says Mayor Mike Kaufmann.

City leaders have discussed possibly using the land to build a park.