The old Scribes building at 546 Great King St was demolished to make way for a proposed new development on the land.
That land now lies empty, covered in weeds and plans have been hatched for it to become a car park.
Neighbouring building owner and heritage building advocate Lawrie Forbes said anything done to the property would be an improvement on its current state.
When it rained heavily the property became flooded and turned into a pond.
"It is just disappointing the way the whole thing has turned out," he said.
"If you do not play by the rules then things happen. It is not what anyone would have wanted. If you play silly games then you win silly prizes."
He pointed to similar outcomes in the city such as the old Century Theatre site in Princes St.
The property in Great King St was the subject of a court hearing earlier this month when two companies were fined nearly $30,000 for demolishing a building without authority.
Dayniel Ltd bought the property in 2020 and planned to create a commercial premises along with 10 accommodation units, parking and a rooftop garden.
Dayniel Ltd’s shareholders are Tony Tan and Su Ming Lee.
Mr Tan told the Otago Daily Times in 2020, after buying the building, it was in a very poor state which left him with few options but to knock it over.
Scribes closed at the end of 2020, after catering to Dunedin’s bookworms for 30 years.
Because of the site’s age, the buildings were deemed an archaeological site under heritage legislation.
But due to a breakdown in communication, the building was all but demolished in April last year before any detailed work had been carried out into the archaeological details.
The demolition was stopped near the end because of a lack of resource consent around a party wall with the adjoining building at 544 Great King St.
Mr Forbes, the owner of a neighbouring property, eventually signed an agreement with the developer to pull the wall down.
A party wall is one built between adjoining buildings on two separate properties. It was knocked down in July last year.
Court documents had detailed a rich history of occupation and development of the building dating back to the 1850s.
Dayniel Ltd and Gary Todd Architecture Ltd, which was involved in the design of the new development, each admitted a charge of causing a modification to an archaeological site without authority, under the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act, in Dunedin District Court earlier this month.
They were subsequently fined $16,250 and $13,000 respectively by Judge Brian Dwyer.
Now an application has been made to the Dunedin City Council for a standalone car park for a three-year period on the former Scribes site.
The application was considered by a council senior planner before Christmas but no decision could be found. The consent was not publicly notified.
Mr Tan could not be reached for comment yesterday.
