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Wednesday, 03 September 2008 |
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 Staff photos/Mike Burkholder
The Cotton Mill building, left vacant for years, was a topic for discussion at the St. Marys Community Improvement Corporation meeting Tuesday night. The building’s future will be decided in the coming months. The photograph below shows some of the many windows that are broken on the building.
By MIKE BURKHOLDER
Managing Editor
ST. MARYS — A long-standing fixture in downtown St. Marys could vanish in the coming months.
Members of the St. Marys Community Improvement Corporation (CIC) Tuesday voted to recommend the demolition of the Cotton Mill building to city councilors. The building, which has stood since the early 1900s, has been vacant for dozens of years.
“This is a building we have shown to different folks and it’s very difficult to work with due to the post structure inside,” CIC President Kraig Noble said. “You would have to design around it.”
Noble showed CIC members slides of the building and pointed out locations that have extensive deterioration. Bricks are falling out of the exterior walls and dozens of windows are broken — meaning it would take extensive renovation project to make the building usable.
“It’s expensive,” Noble said. “We’ve had studies done and to get the same square footage, it would be more economical to build new than to renovate it.”
With an estimated demolition cost of $60,000, Noble said tearing down the old building could open up the lot for economic development. Construction on Lock 13 and the First Financial Bank project could make the location attractive to prospective developers.
“If we sold it, we’d have no control over what goes in,” Noble said. “It’s a key location in downtown St. Marys and hopefully we will be involved in what’s built there.”
Tearing down the building also would allow a new structure to be constructed off of state property. Noble said a small portion of the Cotton Mill sits on state-owned land.
“That makes financing very difficult,” Noble said. “A possible replacement would be moved off of state property.”
The lot, zoned C-1, is in line with the rest of downtown St. Marys. A parcel zoned C-1 could be used for a restaurant or other business.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 10 September 2008 )
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