COLRAIN — Demolition began Thursday morning for the long-vacant building, known as the “Blue Block,” which had been badly damaged when a dump truck crashed into the building last August in an accident that killed the driver.
The building once housed a store, but had been in serious decline over the last dozen years or so.
In 2015, the town sought town meeting approval to buy and demolish the unoccupied building at 3 Main Road, but instead, the building was purchased by Denis F. Bordeaux of Greenfield.
On Aug. 15, 2017, a Winchester, N.H., truck driver was killed when his loaded dump truck ran off the Route 112 curve and crashed into a brick wall of the Blue Block building. The route has a history of collisions, including at least one large truck crash, from vehicles traveling down Greenfield Road.
The intersection, which included the Blue Block, had been the site of several serious accidents, because of the road’s steep slope, as it approaches the Jacksonville-Main Road intersection. Town officials and the state Department of Transportation are to make safety improvements to that intersection.