photos/The Fuge

This month, at a reader’s request, we deliver an update on two dumps that once faced each other across one of Portland’s most highly trafficked intersections, where Washington Avenue meets Congress Street.

Back in June 2008, our original dump hunter, Patrick Banks, described the sorry state of the former dry cleaning and apartment building at 6 Washington Ave. The roofless property had been purchased for $420,000 in 2006 by the owners of Bingas Wingas, who planned to turn it into a multi-story wing joint and bar.

After three-and-a-half years, and a towering stack of official paperwork, the site has indeed been transformed — but not for the better. The four-story building was demolished and hauled away, but nothing’s been built in its place. A tall chain-link fence was erected around the weedy parcel of asphalt, empty save for a snow plow blade leaning against a rusty pole. Litter has a charming habit of clinging to the fence and never letting go. And now the gate’s busted open, too.

In early 2009, Banks profiled the property across the avenue, a tiny, hexagonal structure at 15 Washington Ave. that began life as part of a gas station and became a barber shop offering $7 flat tops. The Bingas boys owned that parcel, as well, having purchased it in ’06 for $175,000 in anticipation of tearing down the hexagon to provide parking for their restaurant. Of course, that plan also went nowhere.

Well, actually some work was done. The hexagon has been partially demolished, revealing a tragedy in progress. Wires dangle from the ceiling. Graffiti adorns the walls. And in a small space toward the back, there’s a makeshift bed amid a midden of the saddest detritus imaginable: an empty can of sweet peas, soggy Marlboro boxes, a bag of Funyuns.

A lot has changed for Bingas since these two properties were acquired. Their restaurant in Portland’s West End burned down. They opened a new location on Route 1 in Yarmouth and teamed up with Stadium owner Mike Harris to open Bingas Stadium, a restaurant, nightclub and sports bar on Free Street across from the Civic Center.

“I haven’t thought about them in a little while,” Bingas owner Alec Altman said when asked about the Washington Avenue properties. It’s not surprising that he’d want to forget them.

Altman and his attorney tangled with city officials for many months over whether he should be required to pay $150,000 into the city’s housing replacement fund to compensate for the loss of three residential units that once existed at 6 Washington Ave. The costly dispute delayed the demolition of the structure until the spring of 2010, when the city relented out of concern the shell of a building could just fall down.

Altman said he hired a contractor a while back to begin demolishing the hexagon, but a stop-work order from the city halted that project, too. He’s been content to let it stand and rot ever since.

Neither property is on the market at present. “I don’t need bottom-feeders calling me trying to take it off my hands for nothing,” Altman said, referring specifically to the empty lot where the dry cleaners once stood. He said he offered to sell the lot to the owner of the adjacent building — home of The Snug and Otto Pizza, both of which would benefit from extra parking — but the two parties “couldn’t come up with a deal.”

The vacant lot and the hexagonal squat apparently haven’t raised the ire of city officials or neighborhood leaders. “Nobody’s been messing with me about it,” Altman said.

More updates are almost certain to follow…

— Chris Busby