SAUGUS — The Karla’s Shoes building, which sits on a busy stretch of Route 1 near the Wakefield Main Street exit, has been an eyesore for decades, as the condition of the dilapidated building has continued to deteriorate over the years. Now, officials are weighing what to do about the unsightly landmark, which appears to have been vacant for nearly three decades.
Board of Selectmen Vice Chair Debra Panetta took her concerns to the Board of Health at its meeting Monday evening, urging the town to take action.
“It is such an eyesore,” she said. “It’s a little scary because what if a piece of it flew out onto Route 1? There’s probably people living in there and what if it was on fire?”
Public Health Director John Fralick agreed with Panetta, and said the department is currently weighing numerous options.
“We are talking with inspectional services about the possibility of some sort of commercial receivership program. We just need to kind of find some sort of program that we can at least either take it by eminent domain or find the owner and just basically say at least tear it down and sell the land because it’s certainly becoming an eyesore,” Fralick said.
Fralick said he believed the next step was likely to be a joint effort between Inspectional Services, the Police Department, and the Fire Department to issue another condemnation of the property.
“We’ll have to look into whether or not that’s already been issued or not, because I’m sure that it’s existed in that way for quite a while. So I would assume that we would all need to kind of just go in on a joint order to whoever owns that piece of property and basically say, ‘Listen, it’s time you can’t just let it sit like that. I know you tried to sell it, but it’s time,’” Fralick said.
Board of Health member Maria Tamagna added that “there’s a million case scenarios as to why we need to move forward with that structure.”
“It’s just the process is insurmountable, it seems. It has been so long and believe me, we all would love to be able to just like take a wrecking ball [to it],” Tamagna said.
According to assessing records, Isabelle Smith has owned the building since January 1985. The building is now valued at $518,400 — with most of the value, $391,600, attributed to the land it sits on.
The red and white building is covered in vegetation and graffiti, and a sign that read “Karla’s Shoes” has vanished. The building also has a red X on several sides of its exterior, which appears to indicate that it has been condemned, letting firefighters know to keep fire fighting operations to the outside of the building only.
In an interview Tuesday, Panetta said she has brought the issue before the Board a number of times, and at this point, the building is “embarrassing for the town” of Saugus.
“Would any other community allow this?” she asked.
Panetta said she believes now is the time to act on the building, and urged the property’s owner to sell the building or simply tear it down.
“I hope the property owner will do the right thing,” she said. “It would behoove them to take it down.”
“It was the time [to act] years and years ago,” she continued.
Charlie McKenna can be reached at [email protected].
