Simi Valley Prepares for Demolition of Quake-Damaged Outlet Store : Cleanup: Council says it plans to vote Monday on legal steps required to raze the vacant building, which officials have called unsafe.

With the owner unable to find financing to repair the earthquake-damaged Sears Outlet on Tapo Road in Simi Valley, the city is getting ready to demolish the abandoned structure.

Members of the Simi Valley City Council say they will vote Monday to take the legal steps necessary to tear down the building, which has stood vacant for nearly 18 months.

“This should have happened in January,” said Mayor Greg Stratton, upset that the property owners have been able to delay either fixing the building or knocking it down.

The building has been vacant since the Northridge quake shook its roof down. Weeds have sprouted in the cracked asphalt parking lot. Despite a chain-link fence meant to ward off vandals, people have been using the back of the place to dump trash, which now is piled high in the building’s loading dock.

City inspectors have warned repeatedly that the building is unsafe. Portions of the roof have collapsed, and two of the walls have little or no support and could be knocked down by strong winds, a city report said.

The earthquake also devastated a neighboring Pic ‘N’ Save building, which stood vacant until February of this year, when the owners finally razed the crumbling hulk.

Local residents wonder why the Sears Outlet remains standing four months after the Pic ‘N’ Save building was taken down.

“This has been going on too long,” said Eleanor Kieffer, a neighboring homeowner, who last September gathered signatures on a petition to have both buildings either demolished or repaired.

“The Pic ‘N’ Save people went by their word, why aren’t these other people?” she said.

Lawrence Morse, a Beverly Hills accountant who co-owns the former Sears Outlet with a group of investors, did not return phone calls Friday.

City officials first contacted Morse in September, ordering him to fix the building or demolish it. Morse asked for more time, while he tried to line up financing to make repairs and tenants to move in.

Over the next several months, the city continued to ask that Morse take action, with Morse responding that he needed more time. In February, the city sent a letter to Morse and the owners of the Pic ‘N’ Save, telling them to remove or repair the buildings within 30 days or face action from the city.

Another letter was sent to Morse in March, and in April city officials again inspected the building, reiterating that it posed a threat to public health and safety.

Simi Valley officials believe that Morse and the other property owners may be waiting for the city to take action.

“Maybe they just want us to put a lien against the property and do the work ourselves,” Stratton said. “It will be a lot more expensive--there’ll be overhead and interest, but sometimes businesses make these sorts of decisions.”

Declaring the building a public nuisance, which council members said they will do Monday, will allow the city attorney to get a court-approved demolition order.

“It’s possible that this would happen immediately,” Stratton said. “If the judge agreed, we could be out there within the week, but we don’t know what the court will do.”