FirstMerit property transferred to county redevelopment authority

The former FirstMerit Bank building property has been transferred to the county redevelopment authority.

The authority board agreed to transfer the 25 N. Mill St. property from the county repository during its meeting Thursday.

“We now have control over it and the commissioners are OK with it,” said board Solicitor Ryan Long. “It gives the authority control of where it ends up.”

The authority and the City of New Castle are splitting the total demolition costs of $726,600 via American Rescue Plan Act funding.

County Planning Director Amy McKinney said that after months of delay due to additional asbestos being found and the state’s frost law limiting heavy machinery and equipment on state roads, demolition is set to resume on April 8 and be completed by Michigan-based Dore & Associates by June.

Project Manager Dan Nichols said his crew of five to six workers would gut the interior of the building floor by floor and then work to demolish the exterior with excavators. They don’t use cranes or wrecking balls.

Long said he and authority member Jim Gagliano met with the commissioners last Friday and the commissioners gave their blessing to have the authority take full ownership of the property.

He said the county has been withholding from accepting repository bids for the property while the demolition is ongoing.

The city and the redevelopment authority signed an agreement last year in which the county would give the city ARPA funding to help pay for the demolition in exchange for the property to become a green space.

Lawrence County Human Services Center President Paul Lynch proposed the HSC acquire the property to turn it into a parking lot.

In addition, Ricky Trinidad, the president of city-based Metrovitalization, also presented a proposal for his company to acquire the space, the former Rite Aid building on East Washington St. and the city parking garage to build a residential and commercial mixed-use complex called Preeminence.

City Administrator Chris Frye, who attended the authority meeting Thursday, said the proposals are just that — proposals — and the city intends for now to acquire the property and turn it into a green space.

Now that the authority has acquired the property, Long said it can directly decide who acquires the property and how the space will be used.

Long said during last Friday’s meeting that Commissioners Dan Kennedy and Chris Sainato are concerned about what is placed at the property because the county has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars. Meanwhile, Commissioner Chairman Dan Vogler wants no stipulations and for the city to be the final decision-maker on what goes there.

“When we start taking applications for development...then we establish that,” Gagliano said.

nvercilla@ncnewsonline.com