City engineer says 'Nickel Building' at 86 East Main will be demolished after inspectors find it unsafe

Hayden Lindsey, Frostburg’s city engineer and acting city administrator, told the Historic District Commission on May 12, 2025, that the building known locally as the Nickel Building at 86 East Main Street is structurally unsafe and the city and the building owners are planning demolition with a goal of clearing the site by July 4, 2025.

Lindsey said multiple recent inspections and on-site measurements showed severe structural failure — including a primary carrying beam that has rotted and floor-joist deflections measured in inches — and concluded the building is too unstable to remain standing. He said the city is coordinating with the owners and a contractor, will erect screening immediately after demolition is underway, and hopes to preserve salvageable architectural elements for incorporation into a parklet or an artistic masonry screening wall on the Main Street edge of the lot.

Lindsey described the core structural issues in detail. He said the primary carrying beam under the first floor is nominally 14 inches high by 12 inches wide and spans…