Owners of building next to Metropolitan get look at damage

CHAMPAIGN – A stately looking grandfather clock given to a former partner in one of downtown Champaign's premier law firms by a longtime client was the only thing working there Sunday.

Fire that consumed the Metropolitan Building at the southwest corner of Church and Neil streets Friday morning heavily damaged the three-story building immediately south that houses the law firm of Dobbins Fraker Tennant Joy & Perlstein.

"I just hope it's salvageable," Renee Monfort said Sunday of the building at 215 N. Neil St. of which she owns a third. "The firefighters and the wind saved our building."

Monfort is one of seven lawyers in the firm, which was established in 1894 and has been at its North Neil Street location since 1990. They hope to find out today from structural engineers if the north wall is strong enough to allow the building to stand. Until that's done, damage estimates are an exercise in futility.

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