Court order allows City of Mason City to take over Mohawk Square, demolition likely in future due to condition (PHOTOS)
MASON CITY — The City of Mason City has taken ownership of the Mohawk Square building under an Iowa law dealing with dilapidated buildings and demolition is likely in the near future due to the extremely poor condition of the structure after the roof collapsed in May 2019.
The city filed a petition last year in district court to obtain possession of the former high school building under Iowa Code 657A, which deals with abandoned and dilapidated buildings. A district judge ruled late last month that the building, owned by the Anthony Lynn Allos Living Trust of Roway California, was an abandoned property.
City Administrator Aaron Burnett says the city has tried to work with the building’s owner to renovate the structure or to find someone to develop the building, but all those efforts have been unsuccessful. “As the city takes ownership of the building, we’ll seek to find a resolution to that. I think most likely that’s going to end up in demolition. I don’t see a real bright path towards any sort of reuse. It would be great if there was a reuse, but realistically the cost to do that is extraordinary. It would take a really capable developer to take that kind of process on.”
A structural analysis by WHKS & Company in 2022 projected a price tag just to bring the building up to code compliance was at $32.4 million, making any project not feasible for most developers. Burnett says unlike many old schools that have been transformed into apartments or office space, the configuration of the building with an auditorium in the middle of the structure makes it unattractive to any developer. “In this scenario, with that space in the middle, you don’t have the opportunity to really convert it into apartments because you can’t get windows to a bedroom. That makes it a very difficult reuse case. While there are schools that get reused and repurposed into apartments, this one’s not a great candidate for that. It would take an extraordinary effort to really make that happen, and that’s kind of the conversations that we’ve had with developers who have experience in these cases is that they’ve just been unwilling to take it on because of the problems created by that and just the sheer size.”
The photos below were taken in October 2024 and were submitted as part of the evidence in the case and were obtained through court records. Click through on the photos to get a larger view. Click here to read the judge’s decision to allow the city to take over the property
