Earthquake: The Long Road Back : Demolition of 14 Structures in Fillmore Delayed : Damage: State and federal inspectors will assess the historic value of the buildings and restoration potential.

State and federal officials have forced postponement of the demolition of 14 earthquake-damaged structures in Fillmore for at least a week on grounds of historic significance, Fillmore City Manager Roy Payne said Friday.

Officials of the State Office of Historic Preservation and the Federal Emergency Management Agency told city officials Friday that they must postpone any demolitions until state and federal building inspectors assess the historic value of the buildings and their potential for restoration, Payne said.

A federal law requires the city to wait seven days to give inspectors an opportunity to make the evaluation, he added.

Until the dispute is resolved, reconstruction in the downtown will also probably be halted, according to Kevin McSweeney, assistant planner for the city of Fillmore.

“We’re frustrated with the process,” Payne said. “We’ve already had our inspectors look at the buildings, and the owners have had their engineers do inspections. Now we are getting third, fourth and fifth opinions on buildings. This all just delays the recovery process.

“They have given us this preliminary opinion without any hint of where the money to pay for restoration will come from,” Payne added.

A team of state and federal engineers did a quick inspection on Friday and concluded that all of the buildings in the downtown scheduled for demolition are repairable, except for the Fillmore Hotel, said Philip Hardison, an architect and local representative for the State Office of Historic Preservation.

“The consensus was that they all could be fixed,” he said. “The question is how much will it cost.”

Preservationists are focusing on the Mason’s Building, the Fillmore Theater, the Central Avenue Market and a few homes that were also on the list, Hardison said. City officials have conceded that it may be cost effective to repair the theater, but they do not feel that it is practical to try and restore the Mason’s Building.

Estimates to repair the Mason’s Building go as high as $2 million, said William Crouch, a structural engineer who inspected the building for its owners.

“They told us it could be repaired, and I told them they were out of their minds--we don’t have that kind of money,” said Louis Gabrielsen, a member of the Mason’s Assn. that owns the building. “Our decision has been made: The building is coming down. Now I don’t know how much power they have, but I don’t think they could stop us.”

State officials said they can delay demolition for 30 days while their engineers evaluate the damage to the structure.

“The intent of the law is to stop the wholesale demolitions that occurred after the earthquake that hit Coalinga,” Hardison said. “We just want to give the owners a second opinion from engineers qualified in historic preservation.”

According to city officials the real question is what is reasonable.

“Anything is possible with enough money, but is it practical to expect some of these businessmen to pay?” Payne asked.

Dale Larson, owner of the Fillmore Theater, said he does not have money to rebuild and doubts that it is even possible. Except for some tax breaks, neither the state nor federal government offers aid for historic preservation.

Larson told inspectors from the State Office of Historic Preservation that he does not want to see his theater destroyed, but cannot afford to save it.

“If someone else provides the money, maybe we could do something, otherwise I don’t see how it’s possible,” he said.