N. Vermilion and Fairchild: Big Assist for SE Corner, NE Corner Remains in Limbo

(ABOVE) Looking out on the intersection of North Vermilion and Fairchild from the northwest corner, the future home of a Sonic and Jimmy John’s.

One more major step has been taken for Danville to try and make North Vermilion and Fairchild an active intersection on all corners.  The southwest corner has the CVS, where the old Times Theater was years ago.  The northwest corner will soon have both a Sonic and a Jimmy Johns.

This latest good news involves the southeast corner, an empty lot with old pavement where First Farmer’s Bank and Trust and Fonner’s Dry Cleaners once stood, and prior to that a gas station.  As Danville City Engineer Sam Cole explains, there’s a lot left in the ground from decades past.  And this $983,000 Brownfields Development Grant from the Environmental Protection Agency is the next major step in putting something new there.

(1st Picture) NW Corner: Future Home of Sonic and Jimmy Johns; (2nd Picture) NE Corner: An old gas station needing major cleanup work awaits action; (3rd Picture) SE Corner: Where a $983,606 Brownfields Grant from EPA will be put to work.

AUDIO: Some of it involves excavation and removal of specific soils that may be contaminated with residuals from an old gas station that used to be on one of the sites.  In the case of some of the other chemicals that are present, it will likely involve groundwater injections, basically, of a certain material that will promote breakdown of those hazardous compounds as well.

The final piece of the intersection is on the northeast corner, where an abandoned gas station with major cleanup issues still sits quietly.  Cole says ownership of this property has changed a couple times; and at one point, the city had a particular option, but they couldn’t accept it.

AUDIO: Via tax sale, I believe, was the last purchase.  And the city looked at acquiring it through that process.  But we would not have had the time to do the environmental research that we needed to do to basically limit the taxpayers’ liability the best we can, and make it eligible for cleanup grants, or for brownfield funds to access it, and things like that.  So unfortunately, we passed on that opportunity.

However, Cole says the current owner of the old northeast corner gas station property has expressed interest in cleaning it up, and then selling it.