COOS BAY — Gary Mountain once had grand designs for the property where the Lockhart Building stands. He planned to tear down the century-old structure and build a four-story, 46,000-square-foot building in its place.

He envisioned retail stores and a coffee shop on the first floor, executive workplaces on the second and third, and attorneys, engineers or architects leasing offices on the top level.

He enlisted investors to put $950,000 into a limited liability corporation called Coos Bay Central Ave. Property.

That was three years ago. Today, the Lockhart Building is empty save for a hair salon. This week the city declared the building dangerous and told Mountain to make repairs or risk having it razed.

Now the California corporation manager is asking his investors for another $120,000 to repair the roof and protect their initial investment. But some of them want to know what happened to the original $950,000.

Mountain, meanwhile, appears to be auctioning off office furniture, vehicles, home furnishings and other possessions online. Advertisements on craigslist.com, apparently placed by Mountain, say he plans to move out of the country.

The Web postings have not missed the notice of investor Matt Miller of Cupertino, Calif., who has asked the Santa Clara (Calif.) District Attorney’s Office to look into Mountain’s dealings. A spokeswoman for the district attorney said the office is investigating but has taken no action.

Miller said when he invested in 2005, he was told the roof would be repaired. Then in 2007 he was told no contractor was able to fix the roof, and so the plan was changed to rebuild the site. He said he has never been told how the $950,000 was spent.

“Why is there no money to do what should have been done three years ago?” he said Monday.

According to Coos County assessor’s office records, Mountain purchased the property from Dale Kinyon, a general contractor who also has performed maintenance work on the facility, for $215,000.

In an interview Monday, Mountain said he sold the building to the LLC for $400,000. Additional money paid for preparing architectural plans and marketing the project, he said. He also put some of the funds into a stock options account that did not perform well.

But, according to Mountain, before he could present building plans for the city to consider, the economy soured. When he tried to get additional assistance from local lenders, he was stymied.

“They won’t take a speculative deal,” he said.

Then in June, the city of Coos Bay declared the building substandard.

In revisiting their files, city officials found architect’s reports questioning the safety of the Lockhart Building’s roof. One inspection that caught the eye of Building Inspector Barry Hardman was the one performed by Mike Crow of Crow/Clay & Associates in November 2005. It suggested floor joists and the roof’s drain system had failed.

This forced Mountain to choose one of two options: Present building plans to bring the facility up to code or get an engineer’s report guaranteeing the building’s safety.

The latter route was not an option, Mountain said.

“We knew the roof had failed when we bought the building,” Mountain said.

But without enough funding to rebuild the site, Mountain decided to lower his sights to simply repair the roof and upgrade the bottom-floor storefronts.

Kinyon had hired an engineer with SHN Consulting to determine what needed to be repaired to make the roof safe. The engineer, Ron Stillmaker, found a wooden beam had been cut off to allow additions to one of the building’s tenants.

“That wooden beam now lacks support and a portion of the second floor is sagging,” Stillmaker wrote in his report.

He also found problems with roof support structures around an old skylight and “considerable leaks” across the roof.

This report was submitted to the city last week, but Mountain said he couldn’t submit plans to the city because the corporation’s investors hadn’t voted whether to provide additional funds. He said he expected to hear back from them by Wednesday.

Kinyon got bids of $120,000 to make these repairs and to put in new electrical and plumbing systems.

The city declared the building dangerous Monday, and has ordered its occupants to leave no later than Aug. 31. Mountain has 15 days to notify the city of his plans to repair the building, said City Manager Chuck Freeman. If no plans are submitted, the city would have the option of repairing the building itself or tearing it down. A lien then would be put on the property.

Kinyon said if the funds are made available, he could make the repairs within 60 days.

“That’s no problem,” he said. “We just need to hear from the investors.”

That might not necessarily be an easy sell. Miller has contacted his fellow investors, all of whom are from the San Francisco Bay Area, and is encouraging them not to provide any more financing.

Mountain, meanwhile, has objected to news coverage of the building’s problems. After The World published a story last month, he demanded a retraction. After Monday’s interview, The World sent a follow-up e-mail asking him to verify the quotes, and also asking about his craigslist.com ads.

This morning, Mountain replied by e-mail, objecting to the quotes used in this story, and saying he was too busy to answer questions before press time today.

“Please do not use these ‘quotes’ at all you have once again not written what I said and have changed the content. ...  Naturally I am not in control of what you chose to write, however, your past writings have not presented the truth and have been very disruptive to the project and the people who own it.”

Mountain said he would provide more information this afternoon.

(Staff Writer Alexander Rich covers Coos Bay issues for The World. He can be reached by calling 269-1222, ext. 234; or by e-mailing to arich@theworldlink.com.)