How long will the Mack's shell sit there?

This past summer, the Mack's Frozen Custard stand on the southeast corner of Moreland Boulelvard and Delafield Street was torn down. Left behind were the building's metal support structure, a few piles of construction materials and a red pickup truck.

So how long will the siteremain in this condition? While it's hard to know for sure, it could be awhile, as the building's owners have not yet applied for a building permit to construct anything new on the site.

However, in September, the City Plan Commission offered preliminary approval of plans to build a 3,400-square-foot commercial building on the lot, which would potentially house one to three tenants. At that time, no tenants had yet signed on.

The metal support structure was intentionally left standing in the hopes that it could be used to support a new building. While the city's building inspectiondepartment has received some calls complaining about the site, those complaints were investigated and the property owners have not been cited for any code violations, said Chief Building Inspector Jim Smith. "Nothing is unsafe out there," Smith said.

On a different topic, last week, this column included a picture of Blair School as an example of one of the polling places used in the Dec. 4 election. The city consolidated its polling places for last week's election, so all voting actually took place at City Hall. We apologize for the error.

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