Contract for demolition approved by YMHA
YOUNGSTOwn
The Youngstown Metropolitan Housing Authority has awarded a $1,082,000 contract to Siegel Excavating LLC of Edinburg, Pa., for demolition of the remaining buildings of the 1940-vintage Westlake Terrace Apartments housing project.
Westlake residents will be relocated to other YMHA housing properties or to Section 8 housing, which is federally subsidized rental housing in properties owned by private landlords.
Notices were mailed Wednesday to remaining residents telling them they must leave Westlake within 90 days.
“We cannot make anyone move before that 90 days,” said Carmelita Douglas, the authority’s interim executive director. “However, because we’ve been working so closely with the residents, a lot of them are ready to go, so we anticipate that probably it will not take the full 90 days,” she added.
Under the contract approved Thursday by the housing authority’s board of commissioners, Siegel will have 120 days to demolish Westlake, said Lester Walker, project manager in the authority’s development department.
Residents of Westlake will get first priority for housing in the Village at Arlington, which will replace the remainder of Westlake.
The remainder of Westlake consists of 20 buildings containing 218 apartments, of which only about 95 are still occupied, Walker said.
Siegel, whose bid was 40 percent below the YMHA engineering consultant’s $1,805,075 estimate, was the second-lowest of 10 bidders for the job.
Siegel will benefit from the scrap value of materials it recovers from the demolition, Walker said in response to a question from Nathaniel Pinkard, board chairman. “There’s a significant amount of salvage-value there,” Walker said.
Earth Savers Inc. of Pittsburgh, which was the lowest bidder at $883,915, withdrew its bid due to what it said was its misunderstanding of the scope of the required work.