The former Downing Civic Hall — The person that purchased it four years ago believed that he also got the vacant lot to the west, but the local American Legion is the owner and the Downing Village Board is addressing the problem. —photo by Shawn DeWitt
DOWNING — About four years ago the Village of Downing sold the Village’s Civic Hall to Downing resident, Bob Nagy. He remodeled the building into living quarters and a community-gathering place on the second story of the building. During the work remodeling the building, Nagy, constructed a ramp from the second floor across a vacant lot to the west of the Civic Hall.
“We bought that thinking that the lot was part of the deal,” Nagy told the village board at its monthly meeting on Monday, July 8th. Nagy continued that he had purchased many other properties and has never looked at an abstract.
Nagy indicated that it was later that he learned that the local American Legion was the owner of the property. Village President Jim Luepke noted that the Stoddard family had donated that to the Legion over a hundred years ago.
Nagy indicated that he would never have purchased the Civic Hall knowing that the neighboring lot was not included with the building. “I needed a parking lot,” he told the Village Board.
“It’s all an accident what happened,” Nagy said. He indicated that his discussion with the Legion now is that they were asking $5,000 for the lot, but its probably double that amount now.
Nagy questioned the Village Board with, “Who is going to pay for that property?”
The Village Board had set aside a closed session as part of the meeting to allow the board time to talk about the matter and it will be on the agenda for next month’s meeting.
