Building inspections on the rise in downtown La Crosse

City also looking to address pigeon problem

Slightly more concentrated inspections of downtown businesses and buildings are beginning in La Crosse.

One of the stated goals is to identify those buildings that need a little extra maintenance and repair.

“There’s been such a huge investment in the downtown area of La Crosse, we want to make sure it’s protected for everybody,” Wayne Oliver, a past president of Downtown Mainstreet, said. “The last thing we would want is any major disaster – a fire or something else in that neighborhood – to destroy the investment and destroy what’s taken a lot of people a long time to get to.”

While a lot of buildings downtown are brand now, others, not so much. It’s there that city inspectors will be looking much more closely in a new push to enforce building codes in the downtown.  

But those tighter inspections won’t necessarily mean businesses get shut down, even if there’s a long list of problems.

“We can’t get it down all at once, but work with the inspection dept. to prioritize what are the things that are most important from a safety and security perspective,” Oliver said. “As long as you’re working towards a goal, nobody’s going to bother you. Let’s work on it.”

The more stringent inspections by the city are also meant to address some potential code violations that could create overly welcoming habitat for pigeons.