The owner of a 126-year-old former home and restaurant in Evesham that was seriously water damaged when pipes burst over the winter was denied permission by the Township Historic Preservation Commission on Tuesday to demolish the building.
Commission members repeatedly questioned the owner, Eric Lavdas, about the extent of the efforts of his firm, EGA Realty Holdings LLC, to remediate the water damage in the former Marlton Tavern and Clayton's restaurant at 65 East Main Street.
The 4-1 vote against demolition likely will result in an appeal to the Township, with the ultimate judgment coming from the Zoning Board of Adjustment, according to the commission.
Lavdas, who owns the property with two siblings, said the regular water was turned off in the building but the sprinkler system fed by a separate supply was left on. The heat was set to low, but that was not enough to prevent the pipes from bursting, he said.
"The only viable solution is to demolish the building," Lavdas told the commission. He said an engineer estimated that replacing everything from the walls out, including the HVAC system, would cost about $1 million, although that estimate may be low today.
Restoring the building is not economically feasible, he told the commission.
Lavdas said there is a "monstrous amount of damage" and that the 1897 building "has no utility now." He said the owners want to raze the structure and sell the lot to a buyer.
The commission noted that of three historic district designations for buildings — key, contributing and non-contributing — the former restaurant was contributing.
"It breaks my heart. ...We love that place," said Lavdas, whose family ran the Marlton Tavern. The building had operated as a restaurant since 1988 and the liquor license was sold in 2020.
Several commission members pushed Lavdas on everything from immediate remediation after the flood (there was none other than pumping out the water) and insurance claims (the insurance company did not pay, he said).
"I have seen no evidence of your love for this building," commission member Paul Garver told Lavdas. "It seems to me you've given up and you want to walk away."
Garver said the owners simply left the building empty. They put up a fence around the building after it was condemned as unsafe by the Township.
Garver said there was no remediation report available to the commission. Lavdas presented a report from an engineer, but the report did not detail the costs to restore the building and it was not written on letterhead from the engineer's company, Garver and other commission members noted.
No members of the public commented.
