MANSFIELD — Land Bank manager Amy Hamrick shook her head Wednesday as she described the situation on (and in) the ground at the former YCMA in Mansfield.
“To be honest, in my worst dreams, it was never this bad. I don’t know what else to say. It’s unbelievable,” she told Land Bank board members on Wednesday afternoon.
A demolition project at 455 Park Ave. West the City of Mansfield paid $500,000 in local PRIDE taxes to have done in 2019 is likely going to cost around another $1 million in a mix of state and local funds to fix, officials said.
That work was ongoing Wednesday afternoon as crews from Advanced Demolition Services in McComb continued work they began in February — and the price tag just keeps getting costlier.
(Below are Richland County Land Bank photos taken in February showing a variety of things found during the re-excavation of the former Mansfield YMCA at 455 Park Ave. West.)
Hamrick said the new crews had dug down as deep as 40 feet to remove material left behind by Page Excavation in Lucas five years ago.
She said entire rooms were left intact underground, pointing to a photo taken last month.
“This down here was … this is actually the roof of a room. There’s a whole room with water pipes. They had to dig down and get out the walls and floors,” she said.
“We’re working our way through financial issues, which has been so much more than we thought,” Hamrick said.
Under the contract, Advanced Demolition will be paid a flat fee $61,099 to explore and dig up the site.
Advanced is being paid by the ton to haul away 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.
She estimated it will cost about $700,000 for the new excavation and debris removal and the Land Bank will then pay the company $44,915 to restore the entire site to straw and grass, per the contract.
Hamrick said the Land Bank had obtained a $400,000 grant from the Ohio Department of Development for the project.
Mansfield Mayor Jodie Perry said Wednesday she will ask City Council next week for an additional $600,000 in PRIDE funds.
Land Bank board chair Bart Hamilton, the Richland County treasurer, said the original project would have cost more — if it had been done correctly.
“If it (the original project) had been done right, it probably should have been about $1 million, maybe a little more,” Hamilton said.
The original demolition began in December 2018.
Marc Milliron, then the manager of the city’s codes and permits department, told Richland Source in April 2019 that the contractor “continues to push through” the demolition.
“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,” Milliron said in 2019.
Milliron, who still manages codes and permits in the city’s revamped Permitting and Development Office, was asked during a Land Bank meeting in February 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.
The question remains, however, whether or not the city can recoup of the half million dollars it paid Page Excavating or the original work.
“It’s at the (City of Mansfield) law director’s office at this point,” Hamilton said.
According to the original contract, the contractor was to demolish and remove the vacant, three-story building.
The 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 city’s plan under then-Mayor Tim Theaker was to demolish the building 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.
However, questions developed regarding the quality of the work done. Since the Land Bank took ownership of the 3.2-acre site following demolition, no developers have been willing to accept the site.
Hamrick said the Land Bank, which took possession of the property after the demolition, had 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 earlier this month.
The goal is to make the 3.2-acre site “developable,” according to Hamrick. “The goal is to return it to virgin soil.”
She and Hamilton both said the public investment into the site means the Land Bank will look for a developer interested in a significant project at the site when the work is finally done.
“Park Avenue is probably in the Top 10 in terms of street traffic in the county,” Hamilton said. “That’s part of the reason we are doing this. It’s such a high traffic, high visibility area. That’s what this is all about.”
Hamrick said, “In all honesty, hopefully we can find a developer to put something really spectacular out there to help make up for all of this. I would love to see a multi-story, mixed use, apartments.”
Hamilton said, “That’s what I envision there. We’ve talked to some developers who had that kind of a vision, but of course, with all that debris there, it was never going to work.
Perry, who inherited the situation when she took office in January, agreed the site must have a development comparable to the public investment.
“It’s going to have to be. I think it’s going to be really incumbent on us to find a really good product for it, with this much money in it,” she said.