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Question: What’s going on at the old YMCA site on Park Avenue West? There is orange construction fencing around the site.
MANSFIELD — Excavators are indeed back at the site of the old Mansfield YMCA building at 455 Park Ave. West, returning to dig up and remove debris left buried when the three-story building was demolished five years ago.
The goal is to make the 3.2-acre site “developable,” according to Amy Hamrick, manager of the Richland County Land Bank, which now owns the property and is using state grant funds for the work.
“We are digging up hard fill,” she said. “The goal is to return it to virgin soil.”
Hamrick said the Land Bank, which took possession of the property after the demolition, has spoken to potential developers, who initially expressed an interest in the site.
“Once we tell them everything is buried, they quickly lose interest,” she said.
The new work became a topic for discussion at the end of a Land Bank board meeting on Wednesday. That’s when Richland Source asked questions about the original demolition, which was done by the City of Mansfield using $500,000 in local PRIDE tax dollars.
The largest questions remained unanswered: Was the original demolition done correctly, i.e. did it meet contract specification? If not, will the City of Mansfield seek financial compensation for some portion of the half million in tax dollars expended on the project?
The four-year Parks, Recreation, Illumination, Demolitions and Emergency Services tax, a quarter-percent municipal income tax that generates about $3.7 million annually, was first approved by voters in 2013 and successfully renewed in 2017 and 2021.
It benefits the city’s police and fire departments (50 percent), as well as parks and recreation (22 percent), demolition (20 percent) and street lights (8 percent).
Demolition of former YMCA followed years of neglect
The building went through various owners after the YMCA sold it in 2000, including an individual who reportedly planned to convert it into apartments, an effort that never materialized.
In October 2016, the city issued a demolition order on the former YMCA building after conducting an inspection of the structure.
City officials said there were broken doors and windows, abandoned or missing gutters and downspouts, structural deterioration and evidence wiring and plumbing had been stripped from the building. The roof appeared to be in poor condition, indicating signs of leaking.
In January 2018, City Council approved legislation allowing then-Mayor Tim Theaker to use the PRIDE funds to raze it.
The plan was to demolish it and then assess the cost of demolition to the owner through the Richland County auditor’s office, who would eventually foreclose on the property. That is how the Land Bank eventually acquired it.
Theaker’s administration contracted in late 2018 with Page Excavating of Lucas to tear down the building, which the YMCA had vacated when it opened its new facility on Scholl Road.
The city’s demolition contract allowed the company to bury “hard fill” from the building at the site, provided it was four feet or deeper beneath clean, compacted earth.
“Hard fill” is commonly known as compacted masonry, stove concrete, tile bank-run gravel and brick.
The demolition began in December and took longer than expected, according to Marc Milliron, then the manager of the city’s codes and permits department.
“Page Excavating continues to push through the YMCA demolition,” Milliron told Richland Source in April 2019. “There have been a few setbacks, such as the asbestos abatement being misdiagnosed, a chilly wet winter and additionally, the building itself is structurally more sound than anticipated.”
Questions raised if material was buried properly
Questions have been raised if the material was buried deeply enough — and if any material not considered “hard fill” was buried, as well.
Certified Environmental Inc. of Lexington conducted an analysis of the site in August 2023, using ground-penetrating radar and electromagnetic induction to look for construction and demolition debris.
It verified three areas on the property with “highly irregular anomalies below the ground surface at a depth of approximately two feet.”
(Below is a PDF showing results of a subsurface investigation of the former YMCA site at 455 Park Ave. West. The study was done in August 2023.)
According to the analysis, which included soil borings, debris included brick, asphalt, wood, rubber and plastic.
Milliron, who still manages codes and permits in the city’s revamped Permitting and Development Office, was asked Wednesday if the city inspected the work during and after the demolition.
“The problem we had on that one was the fact that a lot of the stuff that he would get away with … he’d work weekends (and) in the evenings when we weren’t around,” Milliron said.
“He got in a lot of issues because we kept extending his contracts out because of his time delays and everything else he was doing there.
“As far as stuff getting broken up, we weren’t aware. He did a very good job of cleaning things up and going back over the site.
“So when we would come out and do our inspections, the obvious stuff that they’re finding now was actually hidden underneath the ground. So we weren’t able to determine that he had buried the debris like he has,” Milliron said.
So was a final inspection performed?
“When we looked at the final inspection, we looked at the fact that what was exposed above ground was clean enough. Obviously compacted well (and) was cut decently,” Milliron said.
“Our process has changed so much over the years since that one.”
Land Bank Vice Chair Jeff Parton asked if the city demolitions today included soil borings.
Adrian Ackerman, the city’s director of permitting and developing, said that is typically not done during demolitions.
“It would be more reasonable, honestly, to say that if a contractor requires working outside of normal business hours, that we make accommodations for personnel to inspect if that is a situation on an evening or weekend,” she said.
Richland Source attempted to call Page Excavating on Thursday, but could not locate a working phone number.
Richland County Treasurer Bart Hamilton, chair of the Land Bank board, said the original demolition was done by the City of Mansfield.
“(The Land Bank) was specifically not a part of that. We would have been a part of it, but the city wanted to do that one themselves,” Hamilton said.
Richland County Land Bank OKs re-excavation
Hamrick said the Land Bank board, using state grant funds from the Ohio Department of Development, contracted with Advanced Demolition Services from McComb, Ohio, to re-excavate the site.
The company will be paid $61,099 to explore the entire site to ensure all demolition debris is removed, including the former YMCA swimming pool that may be buried there.
Advanced will be paid by the ton to haul away the debris, including $55.72 per ton of construction and demolition debris; $26.66 per ton of masonry, stove concrete and tile bank-run gravel; $14 per ton for steel; and $34.88 per ton for soil replacement and compaction at 1,500 pounds per square inch.
The Land Bank will then pay the company $44,915 to restore the entire site to straw and grass, per the contract.
Who will be able to say if the original demolition met the contract specifications?
“That’s a good question,” Hamrick said.
“That’s something that we’re going to have to probably discuss with the city. Right now, I just wanted to make the site developable. That’s how we applied for the grant, knowing there was debris there,” she said.
Land Bank attorney John Studenmund said the organization needs to determine the facts surrounding the depth of the debris and the material that was left, perhaps aided by the workers from Advanced Demolition Services cleaning it out.
“That information can be reviewed and referred to the city law director,” he said.
Hamilton said, “The people that are doing the work right now are going to know how deep this stuff is. Those are people that are going to say, ‘Hey, we just started digging on this (and) ‘bam, we hit whatever.’ Those are going be the folks who are going to know.”
Jodie Perry: City keeping options open
New Mansfield Mayor Jodie Perry, also a new member of the Land Bank board as part of her duties, said the city will consider its options once a determination is made on the original demolition.
“The new city administration is interested in working with the law director’s office to determine if there’s any appropriate cause of action,” she said.
In late December 2022, in the final year of Theaker’s administration, the city ended its reliance on the Land Bank for administration of its demolitions, moving the work back inhouse.
Dave Remy, then the city’s public works director, notified the Land Bank via letter on Dec. 27 that Mansfield had chosen to “voluntarily terminate” its contract with the agency that has overseen more than 250 city-funded demolitions since 2014.
Perry said Wednesday there have been “very preliminary” discussions what moving that work back to the Land Bank would mean to the city.
“But that is very preliminary and a long ways from a decision. I think we’re open to it, but part of that is just me getting my head wrapped around all of the different pieces and parts.
“We want to be good partners with the Land Bank. We’ve had many years of good partnership. I intend to continue that and hopefully even improve on it. So we’re open to it. But some of that is just timing.
“I think as we go forward, we’re interested, but I just don’t know exactly what that all means yet,” Perry said.