738 Leland Avenue_AA 2022-0812 - Laserfiche WebLink

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seems to be in decent shape. It’s a pretty plain building, with no trim of interest, and was under-framed at the time of its building. Predating my acquistion of the property, one interior wall slipped off its foundation footing, which has caused the roof to fail significantly. It’s particularly unfortunate that this is the wall that is virtually on the property line; it wouldn’t be possible to stabilize it from the exterior without taking down the fence and ripping up a fair amount of my neighbor’s yard. Both sides of the roof are bowed inward and on the right side of the garage as you face the alley, immediately above the failing wall, a hole in the roof has caused major water damage. Both overhead doors are in bad shape although possibly salvageable; one was wrenched back at some point prior to my acquisition of the property and may be beyond repair. There are several broken/missing windows and the side door was wrenched out of its (rotting) frame a couple of years ago. (See photos at the end of this narrative) The foundation itself appears to be in reasonably good shape overall. I’ve consulted a variety of contractors over the last 18 months, most of whom don’t think the structure is worth rescuing. Nevertheless, the current plan is to attempt to stabilize the extant wall structure and re-roof. Ken Prager will direct this project, which will involve: 1) removing shingles and roof decking to minimize risk of caving in 2) pulling the failing wall back into place on the foundation and stabilizing it from the inside 3) any necessary re-framing of the roof; re-decking the roof; and eventually shingling it with the same shingles used on the main house last year 4) any other necessary structural repairs, tbd 5) Possibly replacing the overhead garage doors. If we can’t rescue the doors currently in place, I have an alternative in mind, which is to replace them with wooden doors salvaged from a garage at 730 W. Washington St that likely date to the 1920s. Regarding external appearance: 1) I plan to continue to remove the large-format cedar shingles on the walls to reveal the clapboard siding underneath. Once that’s complete I would repair and paint. 2) The side door can be replaced with an exterior door salvaged from the main house. 3) Window replacement will probably be put off until next year but eventually I’ll replace them either with salvaged or newly built fixed wood windows. To the best of my current knowledge this is the plan. However, it does feel like there’s a fairly high level of unknown here -- we won’t understand exactly how bad of a shape various elements are in until roof demo is underway and until Ken has actually tried to pull the failing wall back onto the foundation. I’ll stay in touch with staff if there are any substantial changes. That said, the alternative to this plan is likely total demolition, with rebuilding put off indefinitely, so I just want to have a go at rescuing the structure if possible.