DALLAS -- The owner of a crumbling Oak Cliff apartment complex has filed suit to stop the city of Dallas from tearing it down.
Jane Bryant, president of Align LP, hopes to restore the two-story complex where accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald once lived.
"I don’t want to be the owner of a shabby building," said Bryant.
She plans to spend at least half a million dollars renovating the complex at 600 Elsbeth Street into eight units.
"Everything within the scope of our project is completely doable," said Socorro Garcia, property manager.
Yet four years after Bryant bought the property, the city of Dallas complains no work has been done. A chain-link fence surrounds the complex. Inside, ceilings and walls are decaying.
Last month a Dallas municipal judge ordered it torn down calling the building "dilapidated, substandard, unfit for human habitation."
Andrew Gilbert, Dallas’ assistant city attorney, wrote to News 8 that "the property is structurally unsound, it has had at least one fire already, and it constitutes a public nuisance."
Bryant is suing to stop the demolition and feels the city is unfairly targeting her. She said she’s boarded up the building to keep trespassers out. The city’s lawsuit, she said, has jeopardized her financing.
"If we start to tear down these buildings," Garcia said. "Then Oak Cliff starts to lose its history."
The 86-year-old building has quite a history. For a few months from 1962-1963, Lee Harvey Oswald lived in the corner apartment with his wife and daughter. Still, the complex is not considered historic. Oswald was not living there at the time of the assassination.
Preservationists wanted to see it preserved simply because of its age and its scale. The small brick building sits in a pock-marked neighborhood between aging homes and a fast food restaurant.
"It’s important to have a dense building in the area like that," said local preservationist David Klempin. "So many things are being let go of."
E-mail jbetz@wfaa.com
