The Loomis/Downing building block at 14-16 Broadway in Saranac Lake, seen here Sunday, has a new owner for the first time in more than 50 years. (Enterprise photo — Parker O’Brien)

SARANAC LAKE — The big blue Loomis building on the corner of Broadway and Woodruff Street is decked out with flowers hanging from its wrap-around porch after Saranac Lake resident Ed Dukett sold the historic building he’s owned since 1972 to Taimim Li of Long Island.

Katie Stiles, the broker and owner of the Adirondack Stiles Real Estate Company who facilitated the sale, said there are a lot more plans for the building.

“Obviously, I’m excited,” Stiles said Wednesday as she sat down with the Enterprise to discuss the building’s future.

The Loomis Block, also called the Downing Block, at 14-16 Broadway is prime real estate. The storefronts have been empty, but upstairs, Dukett lived and rented to several tenants.

“It was good living here,” Dukett said on Friday. “I had a beautiful view of the whole village.”

He said he could see past the fire station on Broadway and down to Downhill Grill on Main Street.

Several people, including Stiles, have approached Dukett to buy the block over the years, but it never worked out. When Li visited town last summer after purchasing the former Dew Drop Inn, he met with Dukett (the building’s former owner), toured the Loomis Block and they started working on a sale.

Li has purchased several downtown properties in recent years, including the Goody Goody’s toy store down the street.

Stiles said Li is not just collecting properties; he has plans for all of them. And she said he recognizes that the Loomis Block and former Dew Drop Inn buildings are two important properties to Saranac Lake and its history.

The Loomis property wasn’t on the market when Li approached Dukett with the sale offer. But Dukett, 86, said he’s gotten older and a water problem in the basement has gotten worse — so he decided to sell it.

Dukett said there’s water damage in the basement — what he says is the result of the village rerouting stormwater lines in the uphill parking lot.

All parties have declined to disclose the sale price for the property, saying they would wait until the sale is filed with the county. Stiles said the property sold for more than $500,000, at “market value.” Dukett said it sold for between $500,000 and $1 million. The Franklin County Real Property Tax Services office does not have a record of the sale yet.

The sale also included 10 Woodruff St., a house on the side street behind the Loomis block.

“I don’t believe that Ed Dukett would have sold it to just anyone,” Stiles said.

Li has been visiting Saranac Lake throughout his life. His aunt, Mildred “MiLi” Li, moved to Saranac Lake to seek treatment for tuberculosis in 1945.

After Stiles settled MiLi’s estate more than a decade ago, Taimim became a long-term client of hers and they became friends, sharing a common interest in Saranac Lake history and art. They both have collections of artifacts, and she has kept him posted on properties for sale. Stiles said Li would not want to talk for an article, adding that he’s a pretty private guy.

She did say that after MiLi came here for the “cure,” she stayed in town and married Bill Distin, whose family owned the Branch and Callanan mill.

MiLi’s father immigrated to the U.S. from China in early 20th century and became a successful tungsten mine owner, dubbed the “Tungsten King” for his supplying of the metal to the U.S. in both World Wars. MiLi had grown up in Glen Cove, Long Island, but settled in Saranac Lake. She was an abstract artist, helped found the Adirondack Antique Show in 1952 and hosted VIPs with Distin during the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid.

Dukett and four tenants were living at the property at the time of the sale. They all had to move, which for some tenants was hard, since his rent was so cheap there.

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The future

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Stiles will manage the property.

She believes there should still be brick behind the blue stucco facade and plans to do an “experiment” to find out. If the brick is still there and in good shape, she wants to keep it. That would look “classy,” she said. If not, then she plans to paint the building — anything but blue.

The plan is to renovate the exterior and the porches, rent the storefronts and then figure out what to do with the upstairs.

The Loomis block building has for many years been considered an eyesore in Saranac Lake’s central business district. The building became part of a broader debate in village elections over the past few years as residents pressed candidates on their plans for addressing vacant storefronts downtown. Storefronts change dynamics, Stiles said.

Their primary goal is to fill empty storefronts, she said. Stiles sits on the village advisory boards, and this is constantly a topic of discussion.

She is planning some sort of business in one of the storefronts with Li and her husband Bruce Darring. But she is keeping that a secret for now.

She said people have already been contacting her about renting space, but it’s not ready yet.

The commercial spaces won’t be hard to get ready for occupants, she said — it’s mostly “straightforward” cosmetic and utility upgrades like modernizing the plumbing, electrical and heating systems.

She said the spaces are in overall good condition, but there’s a lot of work to do — removing things and cleaning up. She’s not expecting any portion of the building will need to be gutted, but some will need to be renovated.

Stiles said the building will probably not be able to hold a restaurant because the kitchen in the back is very old, but they’re open to hearing plans.

Upstairs, in the old hotel, there are rooms with common spaces, like bathrooms. This floor will likely be reconfigured. The upstairs is wide open in terms of what it could be used for. It has two larger apartments, two smaller apartment studio spaces and four hotel-style rooms without bathrooms.

Stiles said it could be residential, office space or short-term efficiency rentals. They aren’t committing to anything yet. With mixed use zoning, there are a lot of options. Their first order of business is to get those storefronts filled. Stiles said the structure and foundation are in good shape.

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The past

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The building was constructed in 1896 by Frederick and Hattie Loomis.

A fire in what record-keepers believe to be 1945 damaged the building’s third floor and it was removed after that. A fire in one of the storefronts damaged the building in February 2002.

It is one of the buildings in the downtown area that Historic Saranac Lake has gotten on the National Register of Historic Places.

Darring said it is “one of the last real antique buildings in town,” adding that it has always reminded him of New Orleans with the arches over the grand second-floor porch.

In photos of the building from the 1940s there’s a street clock seen on the sidewalk which says “10% Loomis cash store.” Stiles said she’s trying to find it. She could get someone to replicate the clock, but she wants the real deal.

“I keep thinking I’m going to find it over there in the basement,” Stiles said. The basement is large, she said.

She found a collection of old menus from Chuck’s Bar and Grill, a restaurant started by Olympic bobsledder Chuck Pandolph in the 1960s — a time when a T-bone steak cost $4 and a cheeseburger cost 60 cents. On the menu cover is a photo of Pandolph racing down the track in a two-man bobsled with Charlie “Chesty” McDonald from Malone.

The building also housed Downing and Cane’s restaurant from 1937 to 1953, Tuffy’s Tavern in the 1940s and 1950s, the Cinderella Shop, a haberdashery, a tobacco shop, a pizza shop, a bookstore and a number of other businesses.

The building’s first floor was first used as the Loomis General Store, with packbaskets on the walls and hunting equipment on the shelves. It was also the only store with a contract to sell textbooks to Saranac Lake schoolchildren at a time when the state did not provide them.

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Other properties

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Li purchased the former Dew Drop Inn at 27 Broadway in 2022 with plans to revive the inn and restaurant. It’s taken a while to get things ready behind the scenes, Stiles said, but they are working on designs for the building and getting ready to apply for permits.

For years, many of Dukett’s properties were not able to be sold. In 1995, Paul Schlitt, 16, was killed in a fire at an apartment on Depot Street owned by Dukett. Investigators found the fire was caused by faulty electric wiring, and said they did not find evidence of smoke detectors in the building. Dukett has always disputed this. Paul’s father, Robert, sued Dukett and they settled out of court in 1998 with a condition giving Robert a mortgage over Dukett’s rental properties. This mortgage required that the properties were brought up to code before they could be sold. But the conditions of the mortgage were never met.

Around 2015, Dukett said all of his properties were going up for sale, but after a bitter battle with the village, he took the properties off the market. In 2016, Robert agreed to carve the Dew Drop Inn property out of the mortgage, allowing it to be sold.

Calli Shelton, of Texas at the time, planned to redevelop the inn. This project was held up in the permitting process for years because of a series of reasons — some “static” regarding the village River Walk, which was proposed to cut through the property; the timeline of the project; fighting between Shelton and the village; and a general lack of communication between the two.

Now, Li is working to do a similar redevelopment. Last summer, Stiles said they did not have the baggage of the former plan.

The restaurant will be more at the street level than before, but Stiles said everyone remembers the downstairs, so they will work to incorporate that. Li ate there in his youth and remembers the lobster tank, she said.

Kurt Stender of Stender Brothers Sign Company restored the inn’s iconic sign last summer, with plans to install it with neon lights again. Neon is now banned in the village, but due to its historical significance, the sign got a variance from the village to allow the lights.

Li also owns the former Episcopal Church of the Redeemer at 9 Oregon Plains Road in Bloomingdale. Stiles said they see Bloomingdale as a place on the rise, and the 1882-era church has potential. For what? They’re not sure yet. But she’s half-serious about putting a Mexican restaurant there.

Last year, Li also purchased 9 Broadway, and the Goody Goody’s toy store at that location.

Stiles said she does not think former owner Dan Sporn would have sold it without the shop. She said he had built a great business, a place people come to every year just to visit. Li’s name is now on the store and Mike Ward is managing the store.