Bellefonte Academy Apartments owner James P. Nolten faced a July 30 deadline from the state to correct fire code violations at the four-story building destroyed by a blaze Wednesday, state Department of Labor and Industry documents show.
The corrective measures set forth by the department in a June 3, 2003, order include a requirement that the structure at 225 W. Bishop St. be limited to three stories unless its materials were improved to withstand intense heat for an hour or a sprinkling system with 100 percent coverage was installed.
Dozens of residents had to flee the 200-year-old Academy Apartments building when a fire broke out about 11 a.m. Wednesday. Fire officials said Thursday they had not yet determined the cause of the blaze, though fire Marshal Terry Miller on Wednesday said he heard residents say the blaze was caused by children playing with lighters.
Nolten, pastor of Park Forest Baptist Church in Patton Township, was expected to return from a three-week missionary trip to Africa on Sunday.
Neither Nolten nor his wife, Susan, could not be reached for comment Wednesday or Thursday.
Nolten and his wife had been renovating the building, but it was difficult to learn Thursday how close the building was to meeting the compliance order ahead of the July 30 deadline.
The Department of Labor and Industry said that in December 2002, three months before the sale, it received a letter of complaint that raised safety concerns about the building.
Department spokeswoman Lisa Aaron refused to make public a copy of the letter, but Bellefonte Fire Chief Tim Knisely said he and other firefighters had written such a letter to the department after the Headmaster's House, adjacent to the Academy building, caught fire in 2001.
"It was a very dangerous building," Knisely said Thursday. "We've had a number of fires there. We knew it was just a matter of time before it burned down."
On May 1, 2003, state inspector Thomas Woodring of the department's Bureau of Occupational and Industrial Safety inspected the Academy Apartments because of the ownership change, according to Aaron and department documents.
A June 3, 2003, letter to Nolten set forth 17 findings and 17 orders stemming from violations of Pennsylvania Code Title 34 -- fire and panic regulations -- found during the inspection. The letter gave Nolten until Oct. 3, 2003, to make corrections. Six months later, in April 2004, the state granted Nolten an extension to July 30, documents show.
If an inspection after the July 30 deadline were to have found the building still in violation, the state would have issued a show-cause order that would have given the property owner 30 additional days to bring the structure into compliance or get another extension, Aaron said.
If 30 days passed, no further extension was granted and a subsequent inspection showed the building still not in compliance, the state would have ordered the building vacated, Aaron said.
The state's orders required Nolten to remove stored paint and corridor blockages, separate apartments with heat-resistant materials and build second passages to get out of the third and fourth floors and out of each of two basements.
The state also required that the owner install "panic devices" -- typically, crash bars -- on all exit and exit-access doors, remove padlocks from apartment doors, separate the stairtower, which was open from the second to the fourth floor, install exit signs to show direction of travel, and install manual and automatic fire alarm systems, emergency lighting, and individual-apartment fire extinguishers.
The orders also required him to submit "detailed architectural plans" of wall sections and elevations for new construction and added that "it may also be necessary" to obtain the services of an architect registered in the state.
Aaron said she was not aware of any recent request from Nolten to further extend the deadline.
In interviews Wednesday and Thursday, Nolten's son, Josh, said that his father and mother had been renovating the Academy Apartments themselves, one apartment at a time, and had finished about a third of the 33-unit apartment house.
Knisely and firefighter Phil Lucas said they had been concerned about the building for years. Knisely said virtually no maintenance had been done on the building until Nolten bought it last year.
Sue Hannegan, head of Bellefonte borough's historic architecture review board, said it is her understanding that Nolten had begun renovations to create interior fire escapes in the main building.
"It was a lot of work because he had to reconfigure apartments to remove walls to build them," Hannegan said.
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