During Tuesday (May 19th) evening’s meeting, the Danville City Council approved a variety of Community Development Block Grant and Illinois Housing Development Authority items designed to lead to the tearing down of more blighted homes that are either city owned or are tagged with court ordered demolitions. Community Development Administrator Logan Cronk summarized some of what the city has in mind.
AUDIO: We’re applying for $750,000; and if awarded, we suspect we’ll be able to tear down roughly 50 properties with those funds. The other resolution you saw tonight, was to provide funding towards the ultimate demolition of what’s formerly known as the Rick’s Furniture. It’s a very blighted structure on the western side of downtown. Funding has been lacking to be able to afford that. And this will really help the City of Danville afford to ultimately remove a pretty dangerous structure.
Meanwhile, cleanup work continues on the southeast corner of Vermilion and Fairchild, in between Vermilion and Hazel. There’s lots of equipment on site, and lots of questions being asked. Cronk says the ultimate goal of bringing in something new continues.
AUDIO: It has petroleum and hazardous materials, a.k.a. dry cleaner solvents. In order to go get that out of the soil, to make the site redevelopable; essentially a 45 foot hole needs to be dug. And then a slurry of a bunch of chemicals will be put in the hole; mixed up. Long story short; we’re trying to get a site that’s not currently redevelopable for commercial use, to developable. And hopefully, in the long term, get a really nice retail establishment there.
Cronk says once the solvents in the dug hole do their job, the soil in that area will be injected with some additional chemicals as well.
