Most of a commercial building that once housed The Oak Ridger on Tyrone Road near Jackson Square could be demolished in six months under a plan proposed to a city board on Thursday. The Magic Wok restaurant, which is separate from the building, would remain, as would a small portion of the building.
The detached Magic Wok diner would remain and so would the western portion of the building near the restaurant.
Note: This story was updated at 2:35 p.m. May 10.
Most of a commercial building that was once home to The Oak Ridger newspaper and other businesses on Tyler and East Tyrone roads could be demolished later this year, an engineer and surveyor told a city board on Thursday.
The western part of the building near the Magic Wok restaurant would remain, and so would the diner itself.
Roughly 26,000 square feet of the building, which has housed a wide variety of businesses since the 1940s, would be demolished down to the slab. The demolition of the property, which is also known as the Wender Building after a former owner, would include the space occupied for decades by Classic Cleaners.
Noel M. Peterson, owner of Coal Creek Surveying and Engineering of Lake City, briefly outlined the plans of the owners—Jia-Chao and Ming-Wha Wang—during a Thursday meeting of the Oak Ridge Board of Building and Housing Code Appeals.
Many of the details still have to be worked out with the Oak Ridge municipal staff, and the board gave the owners another 30 days. But it’s considered a last-chance extension. [Read more…]
