Jul 23, 2017 4 min read

Just two weeks ago, the City of Washington was riding high after another successful Whiskey Rebellion Festival brought thousands to Main Street for food and fun.

The city has been enjoying a renaissance of sorts in recent years with the opening of new restaurants, whiskey distilleries and even a microbrewery, with business owners investing their own money to transform old buildings into hip hangouts.

All of that momentum came crashing down with the Montgomery Building earlier this month.

Fortunately, no one was killed in the partial building collapse July 13 at 15 N. Main St., but a woman was trapped under the rubble in her apartment for nearly 10 hours. About a dozen other tenants have been left without a home, and a popular barbershop on the ground level will have to relocate.

The collapse sent a shockwave through Washington, causing a ripple effect that is now hurting nearby property owners and businesses.

The center of the ripple surely is where the Montgomery Building once stood. After crews demolish the condemned structure, there will be a gaping hole along North Main Street just down the street from the Washington County Courthouse. It will be an ugly reminder of how apparent neglect by one property owner can hurt so many others.

But the ripples extend far beyond just the collapsed building.

A new owner recently purchased the former VIP lounge to the right of the Montgomery with hopes of refurbishing it. On the other side, at the corner Main and Beau, the owners of Chicco Bacello are leasing the former pizzeria on the first floor and updating it to expand their coffee shop at a retail spot that should attract more foot traffic than their current location on South Main Street. Rescuers working to save the trapped woman had to cut three holes in the side of Chicco Bacello’s new location, delaying the opening date.

It’s unknown how the demolition and loss of a building on North Main will affect those properties, both structurally and economically.

Meanwhile, a stretch of North Main between Beau and Chestnut streets will be closed for weeks while crews dismantle the Montgomery brick by brick. That surely will affect the restaurants and retail shops in that block.

All of this has been a wake-up call for the city, which began targeting dangerous structures a few years but doesn’t have the money to raze all of the dilapidated buildings in Washington. What municipality does? Washington will now have to dip into its coffers to spend money on tearing things down rather than building the city back up.

But most troubling, the collapse could stall the progress being made in Washington’s business district.

As the city puts the finishing touches on its long-term Main Street revitalization plan, new businesses have opened and property owners have invested money into their buildings – well, most of them, anyway – to make Washington’s main drag a better place to eat, work and play. The new Farmers Market Pavilion opened a couple years ago to offer more recreation options, and a new business incubator partnership between Washington & Jefferson College and the Observer-Reporter will give aspiring entrepreneurs a place to thrive.

All of this isn’t in jeopardy, but the recent events undoubtedly will alter the trajectory of a business district on the rebound.

The ripple of economic problems that arise over the next few months and even years will extend far beyond the collapse at 15 N. Main St.

We hope the foundation built by Washington’s municipal and business leaders is much stronger than that of the Montgomery Building.