Phoenix Building to be demolished following agreement reached in court

The fate of the Phoenix Building in downtown Hopkinsville has been decided—it will be demolished, after an agreement was reached in court Thursday afternoon.

Attorney Kenneth Humphries represents the Cravens family and he read the details of the agreement at a hearing in the courtroom of Christian Circuit Judge Andrew Self, starting with the fact that it will be demolished, and both the Cravens and the City of Hopkinsville will search for a qualified contractor to do the demolition.

The Cravens also agreed to do their best to make sure no one is going into the building in the meantime, and will look to find a specialist to hopefully remove some of the unique architecture.

The bidding process will begin immediately, to be complete within the next 14 days, but Judge Self says there does still exist some flexibility in the timeline to save some of that architecture.

The historic building at Ninth and Main Streets was deemed unsafe to enter in January of this year. Other buildings in that same area have already been demolished, including the addresses of 806, 808, 810 and 812 South Main Street. They at one point housed Lee’s Pool Hall, Woods Pharmacy and the Main Street Café.