City officials and business owners on Main Street expressed sorrow over the loss of the iconic Worsley’s building in a Friday evening fire, but also said they continued to hope for the best for Butler’s downtown business corridor.

The building at 161 N. Main St. was heavily damaged by a seven-hour fire that began Friday afternoon and resulted in Butler Fire Chief Nick Ban saying he would condemn the building and recommend it be torn down for safety reasons.

This would make the third vacant corner lot on Main Street.

The landmark building is actually split into two parcels, said Keri Dolan, who owns Worsley’s along with her mother, Lorraine Worsley, and sister, Cheryl Worsley. It includes four Main Street storefronts, one of which was being rented by the business Mystique Moon — which sells antiques and other items and opened in October. Dolan said nothing was stored in the vacant storefronts.

Dolan said the building is a combination of plaster walls and hardwood flooring inside and a brick shell, with some portions of drywall from more recent repair and update work.

The building’s two upper floors housed two-bedroom and one-bedroom apartments. There were seven apartments in all, six of which had tenants at the time of Friday’s fire.

Dolan said she met Saturday morning with Ban and city code enforcement officer John Evans to discuss how to proceed. It was her understanding that the building would have to be torn down.

But this morning how and when that might take place was still unclear.

Dolan said this morning that Butler Fire Chief Nick Ban and a state police fire marshal did a walk-through of the building’s upstairs on Saturday, but that she still had not received word of a ruling on the fire’s cause. Dolan said she was meeting today with insurance agents to discuss the building’s future and with city officials as well.

Evans said Friday’s fire heavily damaged the building structurally, but that it was not in danger of collapsing soon. He said the city is working with the Worsley family and hoped to hear about plans for the structure within seven days.

Evans also complimented emergency responders for their efforts containing the blaze.

“That (fire) could have taken down the whole block very easily if it hadn’t been brought under control,” Evans said. “I just think the fire department and all the volunteer companies did an outstanding job.”

Mayor Tom Donaldson said the fire represented a serious setback for Mystique Moon that now would have to find another home.

He said he believed tearing down the building would cost in excess of $100,000, and the entire situation injects uncertainty into the daily lives of city officials and business owners.

“The big uncertainty is how long it takes the insurance company and code enforcement to reach a determination,” Donaldson said.

Business owners along Main Street said Saturday they were saddened by the building’s loss, calling it a missed opportunity for a Main Street economy that could have benefitted dramatically from the building being occupied.

“Obviously we’re disappointed and saddened,” said Michael Monday, co-owner of Monday’s Boots & Shoes at 208 N. Main St., near Worsley’s. “The opportunity was there. It (the building) had such great bones. All it needed was a younger group of people with a little bit of creativity.”

Monday said his concerns ranged from the impact of tearing the building down — how long it might take and whether streets would need to be shut down and traffic limited — to how the building’s demolition could impact long-term planning for Main Street.

“What does it mean right now? I don’t know,” Monday said. “It’s going to take somebody with even more money, now” to develop that parcel.

Some other business owners said they remained optimistic about the future, and didn’t believe the building’s loss would directly affect them.

“It would be nice to see something go in there to benefit downtown. We need all the help we can get,” said Virginia Sanderson, the owner of Smith’s — The Main Street Florist, at 135 N. Main St. “But I don’t see how it would affect me.”

Ron Fudoli of Fudoli’s Music at 142 S. Main St. said that in his 45 to 50 years in business in the city, he’s never seen a fire like the one that broke out at Worsley’s on Friday.

But Fudoli remained optimistic about the possibility of development at the site.

“You feel bad for the people (and) absolutely, you want Main Street to fill up a little bit, like the old days,” Fudoli said. “If they’re going to take it (the building) down, there will be a vacant lot, and somebody will build something there.”

Before Friday’s fire, Monday said, plans for the site had been tossed back and forth among business owners for quite some time — everything from making the storefronts a one-stop-shop for businesses aimed at women, to attracting artisans, crafters and “culture” to the area.

Donaldson said those ideas — and indeed development in general — aren’t dead in the city. He pointed to the Main Street Dunkin’ Donuts store and recent strides made by the Centre City project as evidence of outside interest in Butler.

He said strides like that would need to be made to ensure the building’s loss doesn’t harm Main Street over the long term.

“I’m hoping it doesn’t sit too long the way it is, and I’m hoping it doesn’t stay vacant too long,” Donaldson said. “This is Butler. We move forward. We assess it, and we move forward and try to make the city a better, more viable place for businesses and more attractive for people to come in.”