During Tuesday night’s Danville City Council meeting, $4,000,000 was set aside from city surplus funds for demolition of the Bresee Tower at Vermilion and Main, along with the Vermilion County Courthouse annex building adjacent to it. Mayor Rickey Williams, Jr pointed out that with one lane of Route 136 being blocked off due to possible falling debris, this has to be taken care of. Now the question is, when. The city will need to take care of some business with the building’s multiple owners in the courtroom, so certainly not right away. And the mayor also pointed out that even with some other city owned long vacant buildings set for demolition, such as 129 and 129 ½ North Vermilion, the city may decide to wait, and arrange everything at once, to get the best possible deal.
Audio PlayerAUDIO: We would consider bidding everything out as a package in hopes of getting a better deal. We will probably ask people to bid it both ways, together or individually as well.
The mayor mentioned that previous estimates had shown a cost of 2.5 million dollars to take down the Bresee tower and county courthouse annex, but that did not include costs for asbestos removal, as well as filling in the resulting hole in the ground.
