I saw the newspaper story this morning about the Barfield Building, the hulk of a structure that sits at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Polk Street in downtown Amarillo.

The story said Todd Harmon, the “developer” who owns the structure, has avoided foreclosure on the building. He lives in Stephenville these days and was unavailable for comment. Imagine that.

The guy tore the guts out of the first floor of the building in 2004 only to watch his loan fall through. And for the past nine years, the building has continued to rot.

I’m not privy to all the nitty-gritty of what’s going on here, but it’s beginning to smell as though Harmon might be in over his head on these grand plans to turn the Barfield Building into a mixed-use structure that would include retail outlets, business offices and residential units.

Good idea, for sure. The question now becomes – as I see it – whether this individual has the chops to pull it off.

A group of local investors had sought to foreclose on the structure. A couple of those investors happen to be friends of mine and I know them to be serious-minded business people and professionals who know what they’re doing. I don’t know Harmon and I’ve only watched his fits and starts from a distance.

I do know what I have witnessed: a once-grand building is now going nowhere.

Amarillo City Hall’s grand plan for downtown redevelopment is going to remain struck in neutral for as long as that old structure keeps crumbling.