Land bank may acquire Swan Cleaners property on Park Avenue West

MANSFIELD - The Richland County Land Bank is considering acquiring the Swan Cleaners building at 165 Park Avenue West, but is waiting on details from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. 

During its Wednesday meeting, Amy Hamrick, who manages the land bank, said the Ohio EPA has not started any preliminary cleanup work.

She said several parties have expressed an interest in ultimately acquiring the building, including Ace Auto, located next door to Swan's; the Renaissance Theatre, The Little Buckeye Children's Museum and a business from Mount Vernon.

"We don't have to determine what our end use is going to be until we determine what the cleanup is going to be. And we won't know what that is going to be until we get Phase 1 and 2 testing back (from the Ohio EPA)," Hamrick said.

"There was a Phase 2 (testing) done on Ace Auto about 13 years ago and it did not show any seepage, which since they're down hill is a good thing. They didn't show any contamination on that," she said.

The Ohio EPA likes to let the land bank take a look at one of these kind of projects per year, officials said at the meeting held at its office in the lower level of the Richland County Courthouse.

Hamrick said come late October, the federal government will have cleanup money and active grants, which are very competitive.

"I know Katie Courtright (from Ohio EPA) would like to see us go after the federal funds to clean it up and possibly get a large sum of money to clean up several projects. There again it's something we'll have to look at, especially time because the applications are very lengthy. I would guess it would be six to eight weeks working on nothing else," Hamrick said.

Swan Cleaners, 165 Park Avenue West, founded in 1929 by Gordon Schwan, shut its doors in 2014, after 85 years of operation as a family business.

A Texas company won a $272,541 judgment against the company that operated Swan Cleaners, according to Richland County Common Pleas court records. The property was forfeited to the state of Ohio.

In other news, since the last board meeting, the land bank has transferred 15 Neighborhood Initiative Program properties and 12 vacant lots. The agency is only 14 NIP properties away from having transferred as many in 2018 as the combined total of the 2016 and 2017 year-to-date totals of 65, land bank employee Amanda Hike reported.

Board members provided an update on the land bank property at 845 Logan Road. The property is scheduled to be sold to the highest bidder at auction at 1 p.m. July 25 at the land bank office. 

The board voted to set a deadline of noon Monday for the contractor to make a concrete offer on the property for settlement of the case.

The land bank is currently pursuing legal action against MorrisCraft Home Improvement, the original contractor on the house, after finding the company was in a material breach of contract and was over budget and behind schedule, with not enough money remaining in the contract to finish the work on the land bank's first home rehab project. According to county property records, the 1,432-square-foot Cape Cod-style house includes two bedrooms and one bathroom.

lwhitmir@nncogannett.com

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Twitter: @LWhitmir