Owner to salvage burned building at 649 State

QUINCY — Andy Caley of Caley Custom Construction told the Quincy City Council Monday night that he now plans to repair the building that was gutted by an intentionally set fire on May 18.

After aldermen voted 10-1 to accept a $79,500 bid to hire Blick Construction Co. to demolish the building on July 6, opposition to increase the city’s fix-or-flatten budget to pay for the demolition caused the City Council to take a second look.

Caley, who owns Caley Custom Construction with his wife, Dana, bought the property at 649 State for $20,000 through their limited liability company, Microplex Properties, on May 26, 2021 from Abbott Development.

He had been meeting with city officials over the last week to try and come up with a solution that didn’t leave the city on the hook.

Caley told aldermen he and his wife wanted to help alleviate the city’s need for housing.

“Two years ago, my wife and I saw this great need for housing in the city…and with limited resources, we started the process of finding dilapidated houses and renovating them,” Caley said. “That was started by one conversation we had with a young mother who was almost homeless, there was just simply no housing. To act with the construction company to facilitate that it seemed like a logical thing to do to help the city. It was also hopefully a sustainable economic move for us.”

Caley said they began with rentals and then when they were looking in the State and Eighth area. They renovated a house at 647 State next to the building that had already been set on fire back in 2008 in an arson that led to the deaths of three people.

“We fully restored it to a beautiful home and tenants moved in,” he said. The building next to it at 649 State…The windows were falling out different parts of the building were falling into our building. We called the owner to see if they would fix it. The owner suggested that we might buy it along with two other dilapidated buildings in the area. At the same time, we had friends who had bought the State Street Theater and what is now Calftown Cafe. We were doing the work on those projects. And we talked to them and it seemed like a good opportunity for the city to rejuvenate that neighborhood.”

Caley then told aldermen the building had deteriorated to the point he could not insure it.

“The day before the closing I was notified that the building…was uninsurable,” he said. “That’s where I potentially made a mistake…I could have walked away from the deal at that time. However, I thought the building has been there for 12 years. And that condition. If we could just hold out for 12 more months or so we could get an insurance policy. I went ahead and made the decision to do it.

But then a juvenile set the building on fire.

“We began discussing options,” Caley said. “One of the options that was discussed was the “Fix or Flatten” program. That was obviously something we did not want to see. It was never our desire to put this liability on taxpayers. It’s just not in our DNA. We wouldn’t have done that. We were fighting tooth and nail to come up with a plan. Financing anything was difficult because we did so much development last year so that was just hard for us.”

Caley said the plan is now to remove the debris as well as the building’s third floor, leaving a two-story building with a new roof. It will have apartments and possibly some commercial space.

So Caley has returned to the vision he had before, only with a few modifications. And the city will not have to foot the bill to take down another eyesore.

“I think it’s going to be a very beautiful building and, hopefully, it’s a symbol of what’s to come,” he said.

In other news, Quincy Mayor Mike Troup said the public forum to discuss new Essential Air Service for Quincy Regional Airport would be held on August 1 before that night’s regularly scheduled City Council meeting.

Aldermen Eric Entrup (R-1st Ward), Mike Farha (R-4th Ward) and Tony Sassen (R-4th Ward) were absent.