Meeting set on College Park Plaza health concerns

Department heads will hold a special meeting Thursday to discuss safety and health concerns that have been plaguing the College Park Plaza Building for years.

Representatives from the Hill County Commission, the county health department, city fire, Havre city public works department and county attorney, possibly among others, will meet Thursday at 3:30 p.m. in the Hill County Courthouse Annex meeting room to discuss if the living conditions in the building can be improved, or if something else needs to be done.

“There are communitywide health concerns there,” Hill County Commissioner Diane McLean said this morning.

The building originally was the Deaconess Hospital in Havre, which merged with Sacred Heart Hospital to become Northern Montana Hospital. It has been used as office space for various organizations and businesses over the years, and for residences.

Hill County Sanitarian Clay Vincent, who has inspected the building, said this morning the College Park Plaza building has been having problems for about 10 years.

In addition to the overall hygiene of the building — common areas are dirty with dishes and food left by everyone, shared bathrooms the same — there are sewer lines in bad shape, paint with lead is peeling off the walls, and in addition, the fire department has a list of code violations.

“Nobody’s cleaning there,” Vincent said, adding that the building had been converted to office space, so that makes it so people have to share areas, which seems to be leading to a lot of the garbage everywhere.

“Is it going to improve? How can we improve it?” Vincent said.

Some of the repairs cost a lot of money, Vincent said, adding that the owner doesn’t appear to be putting what is needed into repairs. Some repairs have been made and the building manager has tried keeping up, he said, but it hasn’t been enough.

Seventeen tenants occupy the building.