On March 30, a building on Water Street in downtown Oswego suffered a structural collapse. Since the incident, the immediately surrounding area has been closed and fenced off, while crews work to repair the damage. 

Curt Miller, the city’s director of code enforcement, said the building at 141 Water St. was declared unsafe that Saturday afternoon, after one of the owners had called the department to report that an outer brick wall was beginning to crumble. 

The building is home to multiple spaces, including the coffee shop The Coffee Connection.

Randy Griffin, the city of Oswego fire chief, said the damage was caused by, “basically, age and mother nature.”

“It looks like some water got behind the bricks,” Griffin said. 

Griffin also said that structural issues in local buildings are not unheard of in the area, due to the age of many local structures. 

Miller said the code enforcement department does keep an eye out for issues such as this, but it is not an overwhelming problem. He said the owners of the building have already made it about halfway through the repair project.

“I would probably be able to deem it safe and allow the owners to reoccupy the building within a week,” Miller said. 

The Coffee Connection posted on its Facebook page that it would be closed “until further notice” due to the collapse and has not posted any updates since, as of April 11. According to another Facebook post, the business was closed the day the issue was discovered.

According to the Palladium-Times, the building is owned by Warren Shaw, and he was notified of the damage over a month ago. The Palladium-Times reported that the repair work could put a wrench in the works for the cities Pocket Park project, which was scheduled to start construction on Monday. 

Photo by Maria Pericozzi | The Oswegonian