A long-shuttered, 151-year-old building in downtown Hobart is set to be demolished by crews within the next few months.
The Hobart Board of Public Works and Safety on Wednesday awarded a $40,631 contract to C. Lee Construction Services of Gary.
The bid from C. Lee was selected because the company has the best experience when it comes to demolitions taking place in dense, downtown business districts such as downtown Hobart, Mayor Josh Huddlestun said.
“C. Lee is the most responsible for demolishing the building,” Huddlestun said.
The weathered gray and white bar once known as Main Street Bar, at 235 Main St., is located north of the post office and across the street from The Art Theater.
The building, which has been at that location since 1874, is owned by Jimmie Batalis who wasn’t at the meeting on Wednesday but commented when reached by phone on Thursday.
Batalis said he will continue to fight the demolition of his building which he called the “oldest commercial building in downtown Hobart.”
He maintains the building is sound, according to a structural engineer he hired, and his plans are to remodel it and return it to a bar that would also serve food.
“My younger brother, Caleb, and I want to remodel it and bring the bar back up,” Batalis said.
Batalis, who was paroled in December 2023 after serving 16.5 years of a 57-year sentence for the May 2003 murder of 28-year-old Jason Nosker, said he believes the city is against his plans because he is a convicted felon.
Nosker was the boyfriend of Batalis’ ex-girlfriend, and they were threatened repeatedly by Batalis before he shot into their bedroom window while they were asleep, according to court records. Nosker was paralyzed from the waist down before dying of his injuries.
Batalis’ sentence was handed down before the state of Indiana required those with high-level felonies and murder convictions to serve at least 75% of their sentence.
Batalis said the property went into probate after his father and brother died while he was in prison and the unsafe building issues started during that time.
“They (city officials) are coming up with every little excuse to tear the building down because they don’t want me there,” Batalis said.
Huddlestun on Thursday maintained the building is unsafe and “when there is an unsafe building we have to act on it.”
“It started with the fire department with officials saying the building was so unsafe they wouldn’t send in firefighters if there was a fire,” Huddlestun said.
The demolition cost will be paid for through the city which will lien the property to recoup the money, Huddlestun said.
Basalis said the building shouldn’t be demolished because it has historical significance and he was even given a certificate of historical appropriateness.
“It’s the oldest commercial building in downtown Hobart,” Basalis said.
Basalis has plans to file a lawsuit to stop the demolition and there is another hearing on the issue on March 4 before Lake Superior Court Civil Judge Stephen Scheele.
If a future ruling is against him and the city puts a lien on his property and foreclosure takes place, Basalis said he will file for bankruptcy.
“If the building gets torn down I’ll move homeless tents down on my lot and will get them port-a-potties,” Basalis said.
The city has not declared eminent domain on the property, nor does it plan to make an offer to Batalis after both the Board of Public Works and City Council voted to defer to a March 8 Lake Superior Court ruling that allows the city to demolish the building that formerly housed Main Street Station, the Post-Tribune previously reported.
What Batalis decides to do with the property now, though, is entirely up to him, Huddlestun said again after the board meeting.
“He’s free to come to us and build something nice,” Huddlestun said.
The process to demolish the bar started long before he became mayor and he has been in conversation with Batalis for the last nine months about what he wanted to do, Huddlestun told the Post-Tribune.
“We’re not making an offer and have no intention to purchase the land from him, but he’s welcome to put something else there or sell the land to a buyer who will,” Huddlestun previously told the Post-Tribune.
Batalis said on social media that he made “several attempts” to talk to Huddlestun between then and now, but that Huddlestun “shut him down,” and while City Attorney Heather McCarthy “made it very clear” for him to file the appeal to the ruling, he ended up dropping the appeal because Huddlestun, he said, told him “once the appeal is over we will have a clear path to move forward and that he would talk to me once it’s terminated.”
Huddlestun said Batalis and his representatives were given several opportunities by city officials to bring in architectural drawings or plans in regard to remodeling or renovating the old building.
“We wanted to see a formalized plan and it never happened,” Huddlestun said.
Lake Superior Court Civil Judge Stephen Scheele on March 8 ruled in favor of the city of Hobart, the Hobart Board of Works and Building Official Karen Hansen against Batalis and Harold Killian, the Post-Tribune previously reported.
In the building case, Scheele found “no genuine issue as to the fact that Plaintiffs failed to file a timely complaint for judicial review as required by the Indiana Unsafe Building Law,” the city “is entitled to judgment as a matter of law on Count I of Plaintiffs’ Complaint for Judicial Review,” the judge wrote. The court also found that the city “did not violate Plaintiffs’ procedural or substantive due process rights,” he wrote in the judgment.
The Board of Works originally set 235 Main St. for condemnation at its July 5, 2023 meeting after at least a year of trying to get the owner’s representatives to repair it, the Post-Tribune previously reported. During that meeting, a local contractor appeared before the board with attorney Dana Rifai, who said Batalis had given him limited power of attorney to act on his behalf while he was in prison.
Deborah Laverty is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
