Unanimous votes came at Tuesday (March 10th) evening’s Danville City Council Public Works Committee meeting; for three separate building demolition contracts, along with some long awaited environmental work on the southeast corner of North Vermilion and Fairchild, extending over to Hazel Street. For both situations, there is a “wait and see what happens” factor.
The three planned building tear downs are at the old Studio 25 site at 124 and 128 North Walnut, the old Millikin Dry Cleaners site at 605 and 615 North Vermilion, and the old Downtown Chart Records and D.C. Fitness sites at 125, 129, and 131 North Vermilion.
Pictures of the above mentioned building tear down sites, taken by Jennifer Bailey (The News Gazette).
Meanwhile, after previously receiving a $1 million dollar federal grant for environmental clean-up work at North Vermilion and Fairchild’s SE corner, $428,000 of it would be spent on environmental work that involves drilling a series of 45 foot holes looking for contaminants. Community Development Administrator Logan Cronk said this will be especially tricky because petroleum located on that site would float at the top of the soil, while contaminants leftover from the dry cleaning store on that site would sink to the bottom. Therefore, some follow-up work and a supplemental bid may be needed, being paid for with more of that $1 million grant.
Then, back to the old D.C. Fitness and Chart Records sites; Cronk says that there you are dealing with connected buildings, and you cannot be sure what you’ll find when the walls start coming down.
(1st Picture) Community Development Administrator Logan Cronk explains environmental cleanup plans between North Vermilion and Hazel on south side of Fairchild. (2nd Picture) SE corner of N. Vermilion & Fairchild, taken from across N. Vermilion. (3rd Picture) Retiring City Engineer Eric Childers (far left) shares some laughs during Tuesday’s Public Works Committee meeting.
AUDIO: The unknown, right? You need to get through step one, to see what step two looks like. Now, they’re both a little bit different. One requires the peeling back of a wall to see how, essentially, the building was constructed in the early 1900s. And the other is a little bit of luck. You don’t know how the chemicals are going to react with certain solvents or petroleums.
Both projects will now be taken up by the full Danville City Council.
Finally, Tuesday’s Public Works meeting was the last one for retiring City Engineer Eric Childers. He was recognized during the meeting, and spoke with CIMG afterwards.
AUDIO: It’s wonderful. I’m very humbled to be working with the City of Danville; and being here for 14 years. And so, it’s a great way to end my career.
Childers’ last day on the job will be March 26th.
