The owner of a long-shuttered, 151-year-old building deemed unsafe by the city of Hobart and scheduled for demolition is making one last-ditch effort to save it so he can reestablish his bar.

In an email Jimmie Batalis’ Portage-based attorney sent to the Post-Tribune, Patrick McEuen said he and Batalis filed an appeal with Hobart Building Official Steve McDermott asking him to rescind the July 5, 2023, demolition order imposed by the city.

The Hobart Board of Public Works and Safety at its February 19 meeting awarded a $40,631 contract to C. Lee Construction Services of Gary to complete the demolition within the next month or two.

McEuen, on behalf of Batalis, asked McDermott “to modify the demolition order dated July 5, 2023, to permit John Cantu an opportunity to present plans to renovate the building.” McEuen also sent a purchase agreement, apparently signed by Cantu, that said, “John Cantu has agreed to purchase Main Street Station 235 Main Street Hobart IN 46342 for $100,000 on contingency of the building not being demolished by the City of Hobart.”“Jimmie Batalis understands that Mr. Cantu will pursue a restaurant/bar operation, and my (sic) intend to renovate the single-family apartment dwelling upstairs,” the appeal said. McEuen also attached a 2022 opinion from Porter-based James F. Gianni & Associates engineer Mark Stern that said, “It is our opinion that the building is structurally sound and capable of sustaining code-compliant structural loads required for a retail/mercantile operation on the first floor and a single-family residential apartment on the second floor.”

That letter was submitted to the Lake County Superior Court’s Civil Division during hearings on the matter.

“We have based this opinion on our observations made at time of inspection; specifically, that no distress of structural members was observed,” Stern’s letter said.

“The frustrating part about it is that the City never heard evidence in July 2023 to confirm the claim of the former Building Commissioner, Mr. McDermott, that the building is unsafe,” McEuen said in an email. “We have an engineer’s report to refute the claims of the former Building Commissioner showing the building is structurally sound. Privately, every politician from the Mayor on down admits the building is not unsafe, but either they have an insider who wants it, or they just don’t want Jimmie Batalis to own it.

“The city is so hell-bent on tearing down a perfect historical building, they are acting as if the Petition does not exist. In fact, an asbestos inspector went through the building on Monday, June 30, and made sure to tell Mr. Batalis he did not feel unsafe in the building at all. So, we are left with a city fighting a person, Jimmie Batalis, not a city fighting for the safety of its citizens or the appearance of its downtown. With the eyesore on Main Street known as the former Bright Spot, the city has other problems more important than tearing down an iconic building at taxpayer expense.”

Hobart City Attorney Heather McCarthy issued a statement on behalf of the city, reiterating the city has held multiple talks with Batalis about renovating or rebuilding on the property because Batalis – not the city – owns it.

“Beginning in June of 2022, the investigation began regarding complaints that the building was unsafe,” the City’s statement said. “The City provided over a year for the owner to address the ongoing issues with the building prior to issuing the initial demolition order. “The initial Demolition Order of the Unsafe Building Hearing Authority was issued July 5, 2023. Additionally, the Lake County Superior Court granted two orders for the City to proceed with the demolition.

“The majority of building owners bring their buildings into compliance after being notified of an investigation. In this case, despite the owner being represented by multiple attorneys and the Unsafe Building Hearing Authority granting numerous hearings and opportunities, the building was never brought into compliance.”

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 previously 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.

Lake Superior Court Civil Judge Stephen Scheele on March 8 ruled in favor of the city of Hobart, the Hobart Board of Works and former Hobart Building Official Karen Hansen against Batalis and his business partner, 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.

Batalis and Killian previously offered to put $60,000 into renovating the building, but Huddlestun said that isn’t enough to make the building habitable.

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.

Since the contractor’s company wasn’t licensed with the city to do work at the time, he told the board he reached out to Tak Construction, which is licensed to work in Hobart, to do the work with him acting as the project manager — a move the board immediately shot down, the Post-Tribune reported.

The contractor then said he had a copy of a report that says the building is structurally sound, a point which Hansen disputed, the Post-Tribune reported. The building’s east wall needs to be replaced, plus the owners failed to maintain it, she said at the time.

Additionally, the owners did have a Hobart-licensed contractor lined up to do the work at one point, but that contractor claims they never got a deposit from the owner, Hansen said. Former Hobart Fire Chief Randy Smith added that there have been two fires at the building, and as it stands now, he would not allow his firefighters to enter the building if there were a third, the Post-Tribune reported.

The Lake Superior Court Civil Division on May 23 denied Batalis’ motion for summary judgment, a temporary restraining order and for hearing on preliminary injunction saying, among other things, that the Indiana Unsafe Building Law grants the City “all requisite authority to enforce and carry out its July 2023 demolition order, according to the ruling.”

Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.