Roof collapses at 118 Madison

The roof of this building at 118 Madison, at the corner of Madison and November 6th Alley, collapsed yesterday afternoon. It had been raining hard for most of the morning, and it’s possible that the weight of the water caused the roof to give way.

Sad to see it happen. I thought this was a beautiful building, with wraparound windows on the corner. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, given the collapse) it had been empty since I moved Downtown, except for Easy PC on the ground floor. I always thought it was a shame no one ever gave it the attention it deserved and turned the upper floors into apartments or condos. It was appraised at only $81,000 according to this CA article. Amazing that this huge building was estimated to be worth about what a 600 SF condo in the area would be appraised for.

There are several other buildings like this one on Madison between Main and Fourth – buildings that admittedly need a lot of work, but could be true hidden gems with a little TLC. I hope developers will take a look at Madison’s potential.

This building was said to be leaning into the alley, so streets had to be blocked off and it may not be able to be saved. Here are more pics.

 

You can see the caved-in roof in the top-floor window in this shot.
Photo of the caved-in roof taken from the rooftop of my apartment building at 10 S. Main.