Illustration by Tabitha Walters
Shortly after 6 a.m. on Feb. 19, residents of the West Side were jolted awake by the sound of an explosion, followed by the wail of fire and police sirens. A small house at 701 S. Seventh St. had blown up.
A subsequent Ann Arbor police investigation pinned the cause on two twenty-pound propane tanks that were being used to heat the house, whose gas and water were turned off.
The home’s sole resident suffered a concussion and minor injuries. Though he wasn’t named in the report, a GoFundMe seeking help for his medical and relocation expenses identified him as Tom Piedmont. City records list Thomas Piedmonte—with a second “e”—as the home’s owner.
Police body cams captured the dramatic fire, which was put out within twenty minutes. By midday, the intersection of Seventh St. and Princeton was open again.
Since then, a mound of debris from the house has sat on the site, contained by an orange safety fence, with a cardboard sign for the GoFundMe out front. Finally, in July, a yellow backhoe collected some of the outlying rubble and gathered it into a tall pile. In mid-August, the city issued a grading permit for clearing the site, according to an email to the Observer from the city attorney’s office.
The email said the city would send a permit for debris removal to KLA Development, the contractor working with Piedmonte and the city’s building department to get the project underway. KLA did not reply to a request for comment, but it’s done a number of teardowns, replacing small older houses with bigger new ones. In this case, the demolition is already done.
The attorney’s office says the city sent a notice of building code violations, but no ticket was issued because the owner is cooperating. The GoFundMe raised $21,310 to cover Piedmonte’s medical and relocation expenses. According to whitepages.com, he’s seventy-seven and now living in Santa Maria, California.
As the Observer went to press, the debris pile was still in place, including the crushed remains of a blue trash receptacle that somehow survived the explosion. But it seems a vacant lot will soon replace it—to be followed, presumably, by new construction.
