By Michael Monks || River City News
The 501 Main Building, named for its address at the entrance of Mainstrasse Building, will soon be gone.
Interior demolition began Monday and the site was blocked off by temporary fencing.
Earlier this month, the Covington city commission voted to approve Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing to pay for the improvements to the site, as well as an agreement related to bonds for the project.
When completed, the development, known as River Haus, will have 187 apartment units and a ground-level commercial space. There will also be a parking garage.
In the meantime, to offset parking losses from the demolition of the 501 Main building, the City of Covington said that the Smith Muffler section of the adjacent parking lot will be available for use. That section was at one time a point of contention for the development. Most of the site is owned by the City of Covington, and when it tapped Indianapolis-based Flaherty & Collins Properties to lead the redevelopment, no agreement could be reached on the sale of that sliver.
he result was a design from the developers that included two buildings rather than one.
According to updated Kenton County property records, the sliver of parking was sold to an LLC associated with Flaherty & Collins for $1.3 million, and then sold to the City of Covington, which will own the property for the duration of the bonds, for $1 million.
The entire demolition of the 501 Main building is anticipated to take approximately five to six weeks to complete.