Cronkite News Service in Arizona has a report about residents’ efforts to save the Havasu Hotel in Seligman from the wrecking ball. It was a Harvey House for many years until it closed decades ago.

Most of the story treads over familiar ground, except for this new twist:

Frank Kocevar, owner of Seligman Sundries, a coffee bar and gift shop in a historic building, said he is negotiating with the railroad to buy the hotel and restore it on land he owns nearby.

“I want to see life in that building – perhaps as a museum, so people could see a piece of Seligman,” Kocevar said. “It’s a classic building. It would be hard to replace.”

The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway went from scheduling a demolition in October to not doing it until 2009 at the earliest. So preservationists already have had an effect by buying the Havasu more time.