Since the local government offices in Washington remain closed on Sunday, no one was available to clarify when they pasted the notice and why they removed it.
When Dawn contacted officials at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, they said that “since we never saw the notice, we cannot say when or why it was removed”.
A photo of the “Blighted Property” notice, taken on Friday, said the Building Enforcement Unit of the Department of Buildings (BOD), Washington, “has inspected your property and deemed it to be blighted”.It asked the owners of the property, Pakistan Embassy, to “complete and submit a blighted building response form, within 30 days” or “your property will be designated as blighted and reclassified accordingly”. The notice also warned that “unauthorised removal” of this red notice could lead to a fine of $500.
Media reports published earlier this week claimed that the Washington DC government had downgraded the property classification of this embassy-owned building on the city’s historic R-Street NW.
The building has been up for sale for the past few months and received offers much below the prevalent price in this neighbourhood.
The reports warned that the declassification will further reduce the market value of the building while increasing taxes on its assessed value.
The building, which used to be a chancery in the past, was put up for auction late last year. The bidding process was later cancelled by Pakistani authorities, under pressure from the Pakistani American community.
Several community members claimed that they were willing to offer much more than the highest bid of $6.8 million for the property located in the heart of the city. Earlier media reports, however, put the pre-auction evaluation of the building, on ‘as is’ basis, at $4.5m. The building has been unoccupied for over a decade. The building’s diplomatic status was also revoked in 2018, making it liable to pay taxes to the local government.
In 2008, a Washington Post report on blighted properties in Washington listed a “paint-peeled columns and boarded-up windows” of a building owned by the United Arab Emirates, and “the hip-high grass and missing front door knob of a building owned by the Pakistani government.”
In December 2017, the US State Department responded to a plea for action from a local government official, Eleanor Holmes Norton, saying that it was ready to “aggressively engage” foreign countries with derelict properties in the nation’s capital.
In another letter to the local government, a State Department official said buildings owned by several countries, including Pakistan and Argentina, have lost diplomatic protections. A 2018 report in the Washingtonian magazine noted that “a 1906 Beaux Arts beauty, the onetime embassy of Pakistan has been vacant for about a decade — and it shows.
A demolition notice hangs to the left of the front door. Some windows are broken, while others are covered with cobwebs“. The report noted Pakistan has moved its embassy to “expansive new digs” near the Van Ness Metro.
An earlier Associated Press report noted that this “large building at the corner of 22nd and R street in downtown Washington, sticks out like a wart in the otherwise upscale neighbourhood”.
The building’s “plywood covers the windows, sleeping bags and empty bottles litter the shuttered doorways and head-high weeds sprout through the asphalt of the empty fenced-off parking lot,” the report added.
Pakistan could sell a part of its embassy in the US capital Washington DC to a Jewish company that has offered the highest bid for the building. Islamabad’s decision to sell its property in Washington comes in the wake of reports about a financial crunch at home, and millions being spent on the upkeep of this building that remained unused since 2000.
According to Dawn Newspaper, the Jewish group has made the highest bid of almost $6.8 million. It wants to convert the building into a synagogue, a Jewish temple.
Interestingly, the second bid of about $5 million is from an Indian realtor and the third of about $4 million is from a Pakistani realtor, Dawn reported quoting diplomatic sources.
Pakistani-Americans, who were contacted by the embassy for opinion have said that the building should go for the highest bidder. “We should follow this tradition, also because it will create a lot of goodwill in an influential American community, which wants to use it as a place of worship,” a Pakistani realtor, who asked Dawn not to name him, said.
One of the three properties of Pakistan used for diplomatic presence in the USA on the prestigious R Street NW was up for sale. This building once housed Pakistani’s embassy’s defense section from the mid-1950s to the early 2000s.
Facing a huge funds crunch, Islamabad has also decided to lease out a prime property – the Roosevelt Hotel site in New York. Recently, the Cabinet Committee on Privatisation has asked for the appointment of a financial adviser for leasing the property.
The embassy officials told that they were also consulting an appraiser to finalize the deal: to sell the building as it is or to do so after renovation. “We are in no rush, and we will not conclude a deal that does not benefit Pakistan,” the embassy official said.
The embassy moved to the new building in the early 2000s, but it is also keeping the old building and has spent close to seven million dollars in renovating it and the nearby official residence of the ambassador.
The amount spent on the renovation, however, surprised many, with some demanding a probe to determine why it cost so much. The R Street building, however, has never been renovated and a visit to the site showed that it was in dilapidated condition.
Other residents of the area confirmed that they had complained to the local authorities about the state of the building which, they said, was now “a security hazard”. The R Street building was purchased by Ambassador Syed Amjad Ali between 1953 and 1956.