Council accepts bids to raze Green Acres

Ober­lin city coun­cil voted unan­i­mously Mon­day night to accept bids for the demo­li­tion of the build­ings at Green Acres. The deci­sion puts to rest any dis­cus­sion on whether or not the city should repur­pose the buildings.

“The lay­out of the build­ing, as well as its dete­ri­o­rated con­di­tion, does not lend itself to adap­tive reuse. Numer­ous staff and cer­tain coun­cil mem­bers have toured the build­ing to con­sider its future poten­tial,” pub­lic works direc­tor Jeff Bau­mann said in a memo to coun­cil. “Con­sen­sus has built around the need to remove the build­ing and sub­stan­tially clear the site for redevelopment.”

The demo­li­tion of the main build­ing on the prop­erty, which served as the Lorain County Children’s Home until it closed in 1995, was divided into two sep­a­rate con­tracts, one for the removal of asbestos from the prop­erty and the other for the demo­li­tion of the structure.

The asbestos removal con­tract was awarded to Cole­man Truck­ing, Inc., of Cleve­land, for the amount of $45,018.65. Cole­man Trucking’s bid was the low­est of the four bids the city received, with the high­est being a lit­tle over $48,000, which was still well below the city’s esti­mate of $54,025 for the project.

The demo­li­tion con­tract was awarded to Bad­ger Con­struc­tion Com­pany, Inc. of Mor­gan­town, W.Va., for $117,900. Ober­lin received eight bids for the demo­li­tion, with the high­est being just over $185,000.

The city engi­neer esti­mated the cost of the demo­li­tion project at $125,603.

“The com­bined value of the low bids for the asbestos removal and the demo­li­tion con­tracts is $162,918.68. This is about $12,500 less than the pre­vi­ous low bid,” Bau­mann said.

At the May 7 city coun­cil meet­ing, the city lead­ers voted to reject all bids on the demo­li­tion project, the low­est of which was $175,368. By law coun­cil had to reject the bids, accord­ing to the Ohio Revised Code, because the esti­mate was more than 10 per­cent over the city’s ini­tial esti­mate of $112,022 for the demo­li­tion project.

Bau­mann and his staff decided split­ting the demo­li­tion into two sep­a­rate con­tracts would pos­si­bly lower the bids sub­mit­ted by companies.

While city offi­cials see the demo­li­tion of the build­ings as a pos­i­tive step for­ward in using the land at Green Acres, which the city pur­chased from Lorain County in Sep­tem­ber, 2011 for $265,000, res­i­dents have raised con­cern that the city is raz­ing build­ings that could poten­tially be used for other needs.

“What you peo­ple are doing tonight is typ­i­cal stuff. Pass­ing it on emer­gency with­out any dis­cus­sion, and we’re going to roll along with this,” Ober­lin res­i­dent Tony Mealy said to coun­cil Mon­day night. “All I can tell coun­cil is I’m rather dis­ap­pointed. I don’t see the vision here at all. Nobody used any vision; no one went out and got a struc­tural engi­neer to look at the build­ing. What you see on the inside is not really the struc­ture. There’s a struc­ture there that is worth $1.5 mil­lion and you’re going to destroy it.”

Mealy said he feels the build­ing is struc­turally sound and it could be gut­ted and ren­o­vated to be used for city offices. Other res­i­dents have sug­gested the build­ing be used as a recre­ation center.

“When the land became avail­able, the focus on that coun­cil was we were inter­ested in the pur­chase of the land, not the build­ing,” said coun­cil vice pres­i­dent Sharon Soucy. “One rea­son it may appear there wasn’t lengthy dis­cus­sion over this is because coun­cil was gen­er­ally unan­i­mous over why we were mak­ing this move. Our focus was the land. My per­sonal feel­ing is at this point we don’t have the money to ren­o­vate the building.”

The city of Ober­lin doesn’t have a clear-cut plan for what the land will be used for at this time, though the city’s plan­ning com­mis­sion is work­ing on a sug­ges­tions to present to coun­cil in the near future, pos­si­bly as soon as the next coun­cil meet­ing on June 18.

Posted by Scott Mahoney on Jun 8 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.