Monroe has taken various actions over the years to improve the community’s “front door” through landscaping and architectural requirements for businesses around the interchange, according to Kevin Chesar, city development director.
The city has also ordered demolitions for neglected or derelict buildings in the interchange area, he said.
“We have been monitoring the former Bristol’s site at 1009 Lebanon St. as it increasingly deteriorated,” he said.
The city was able to condemn and eventually order the demolition of the building this year, Chesar said.
The new property owner worked with the city to request a termination of the site’s Sexually Oriented Business License, according to Chesar.
“Overall, we are glad they are working with the city to demolish the building as well as clean up and maintain the overgrown vegetation due to the high visibility that the site has,” Chesar said.
The property’s buyer — Dixie Imports LLC of Fairfield — has plans for a two-story indoor used car showroom, according to Charles Shafer of OverLand Realty, who is representing the buyer.
The company is working to design a building that will hold as many as 350 cars, he said, and estimated the project cost at several million dollars.
Shafer said the owners hope to begin construction by spring 2019.
According to Journal-News archives, Bristol’s opened for business in November 1994 and closed in September 2005.
In March 2005, the city’s sexual oriented business ordinance was upheld in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati, ending a five-year battle with Bristol’s former owner, WFO.
Deja Vu, a national strip club chain, had plans to re-open the near-nude club in January 2006.
City Manager William Brock said Deja Vu never occupied the building. They wanted to expand it; however, the size of the expansion would have exceeded the legal non-conforming use of the property, he said.
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