Steel Ceilings, Inc. comes down
COSHOCTON – A Port Authority project that has been a little over two years in the making took a big step last week when William Albert Excavating, Inc. knocked down the former Steel Ceilings, Inc. on Third Street.
In May 2012, the Coshocton Port Authority was awarded a $700,000 grant that will be used along with a $1.2 million OWDA loan and matching funds to environmentally assess, cleanup and improve the property.
“This is a matching program so we had to come up with a 25 percent match,” said Dorothy Skowrunski, executive director of the Port Authority. “The Port Authority had acquired the property through donation so the value of it was our match. RockTenn is also our partner on the project and they will cover anything over the $700,000.”
The entire cleanup of the area should be completed around 2016 and in the end, RockTenn will have the property.
A plant had occupied the property since the early 1900s and Steel Ceilings, which was there from 1960 to 2004, made architectural and structural medals.
“We are really excited about this project,” Skowrunski said. “Not only are we cleaning up an environmental problem and making a property available for use in the future, but we are helping RockTenn with something they’ve wanted to do for quite a while. This will be an asset to them.”
RockTenn is adjacent to the 15.8 acres that was used by Steal Ceilings.
“The previous owner was an LLC and the taxes were not paid,” Skowrunski said. “There also was a million dollars in EPA cleanup that needed done and we knew no one was going to buy the property because of that.”
The Port Authority was able to solve the problem by getting grants, taking possession of the property and working with city and county officials so it only had to pay the current taxes, not the back ones. Its goal all along was to remediate any conditions found and redevelop the property so that it may be put to productive use by RockTenn.
josie@coshoctoncountybeacon.com
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