[FONT=Verdana]A missing permit delayed the scheduled demolition Thursday of a row of buildings in Fells Point that were formerly a school run by Franciscan friars.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana]City Councilman James B. Kraft, asking to see paperwork, said city officials had not formally given approval to the wrecking crew's plan to stabilize an 18th-century house that the preservationists hope will remain standing on the site. The so-called "four-bay mansion" was built about 1795, and is in the middle of the row of buildings on Aliceanna Street that are due to be torn down.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana]"Everything is going to stop right now," Kraft said to a group of about 20 neighbors who had gathered at 7 a.m. They watched as he talked with construction workers inside the site, which could become condominium townhouses. Kraft came out and said that the crew had shown him only a sketch of how they planned to shore up the four-bay house.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana]The Rev. Joseph Benicewicz spoke from the Franciscan order's provincial headquarters in Ellicott City. He said it was a "huge surprise" to discover that the friars' plan required the approval of city officials.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana]"We would say we had everything we needed," Benicewicz said. "There's noting in the permit that we had that says it had to be stamped or approved by the city. We have taken all steps that are necessary to be able to proceed with a valid demolition."[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana]The delay "continues to cost us more money."[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana]The friars' demolition permit expires April 5 and an application to renew it could force city officials to reconsider whether to let any of the buildings are destroyed, according to Ellen von Karajan, director of the local Preservation Society.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana]Von Karajan and other activists want city officials to put landmark status on at least the four-bay house - so called because its width, about 28 feet, permits four windows in a row, as opposed to most other houses of the period in Fells Point that are three or two windows wide.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana]Bob Eney, a local historian, said the only other four-bay house known to have existed in Fells Point, on Thames Street, was demolished in 1934. Details of its architectural highlights are preserved in the Library of Congress.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana]But the Franciscan friars who own it want to tear it down, their lawyer, Ryan J. Potter, wrote in a letter to the city March 12.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana]"The friars are opposed to landmark status for the four-bay house," Potter wrote to City Solicitor George Nilson, emphasizing the "substantial" financial loss the friars would incur if a single building were to remain on a site the friars hope to sell to developers.[/FONT]