The Tyler Building, which was extensively damaged last year, was sold by Wholesale Petroleum Properties, Inc. (owner Marty Rivers) on August 9th, 2019, to Infinity Investment Group, LLC, a Tulsa real estate investment firm, (owners Shaun Fisher and John Gorrell) for the modest sum of $10.00, according to Creek County documents. for $155,000.00 for the building and the lot behind it.*
The Infinity website shows a picture of one of the company’s newest acquisitions: The Tyler Building at 19 E. Hobson.
The building has been sitting in extreme disrepair for months since the entire rear of the brick-veneer building fell off. A former owner of the downtown buildings suggested that the recently applied foam roof became pitted and then saturated with water, expanded, and pushed the wall down.
The former back brick wall (from the first and second floors) lays in a four-foot-high pile of broken rubble behind the building. The first-floor and second-floor joists, flooring, walls, and windows have also been substantially compromised. This dangerous situation has been a source of concern for the City Code Enforcement and Public Works offices and, in fact, there was a demolition order in place to have the building flattened.
The Sapulpa Times took part in a three-way conversation with Mark Stephens, Code Enforcement, Steven Hardt, Public Works Director, on Friday morning. Stephens said, “We’re ecstatic!” that the investment firm has bought the building and presented a letter from Stresscon, Inc. of Tulsa, which indicated that the building is “structurally sound” and can be “salvaged,” rehabilitated and shored up. The engineering company plans to use steel beams to hold the new back walls in place. The real estate investment firm told the City that it plans to build “lofts” in the oldest extant building in Sapulpa (erected in 1901).
Marty Rivers, the former owner, was glad to see the building purchased to be used and not torn down.
“[We] felt the building should be saved,” Rivers said, in a separate conversation with Sapulpa Times.
John Gorrell, one of the partners in the firm that purchased building wanted to thank Jim Dilley with Sapulpa Chamber Executive Board for telling them about the building. “we are super excited to restore this building,” Gorrell said.
According to Mr. Stephens, the new owners have been given a “short time frame” in which to get the area cleaned up and the building shored up. At present, there is only one bid for this work and the owners are expecting other bids to restore the site to “safe, normal working condition.” It was unclear exactly how long that time frame is. Sapulpa Times will continue to monitor the developments.
* After publishing this story, we learned that the $10.00 is what’s known as “standard language” in this type of transaction and that the final sale price was not $10.00 – we’ve updated the story with the new information, from the seller himself.
