43
Delphi proceeds with demolition plans
The Vindicator (Youngstown)
Photo
The former engineering building, above, at Delphi Packard Electric will be demolished along with a manufacturing building at the company’s North River Road facilities in Howland.
RELATED NEWS:
By Ed Runyan
HOWLAND
Plans are moving forward for Delphi Packard Electric to demolish its former engineering building and a 305,000-square-foot manufacturing building at the company’s North River Road facilities, starting in about a month.
In their place, Delphi plans to create a 229-foot-wide green space containing grass, pine trees and a chain-link fence. The green space also will extend to the west end of the property, causing part of the parking lot to be removed.
The space would separate Delphi’s two active production buildings from the three buildings the company wants to sell to the north.
The two production buildings total 970,859 square feet, and the three buildings for sale total 1.2 million square feet. In all, the complex has 2.6 million square feet of space on 303 acres.
A Delphi time line says a purchase order will be issued to a demolition contractor within two weeks, and asbestos abatement will begin within five weeks.
The engineering building is scheduled to come down in about two months, and Plant 13 would come down in about four months. The job will be done in about six months.
It’s not known whether Delphi has a buyer for the three vacant buildings, but Trumbull County Commissioner Paul Heltzel said the Western Reserve Port Authority and Delphi continue to negotiate a possible deal in which the port authority would take ownership of the buildings.
Rachel Valdez, a Delphi spokesperson, said Delphi’s goal is to create a “clear separation” between the buildings Delphi uses now and the ones for sale. Negotiations with the port authority and Ohio Department of Development for the three buildings are ongoing, but demolition remains an option, she said.
The engineering building has been vacant about a year, Valdez said. Plant 13 has been empty two to three years.
The port authority and county commissioners took steps in December to stop Delphi from demolishing all of its vacant buildings on North River Road by seeking to acquire them.
The port authority runs the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport and conducts economic- development activities.
The Howland Township zoning office granted approval to Delphi’s demolition plans Monday, after a five-week review.
The plans call for Plant 13 and the engineering building, which is 168,535 square feet, to be removed. The green space would become narrower near the eastern edge of the property, because part of the concrete slab under Plant 13 would be retained and used by Delphi for tractor-trailer parking.
Darlene St. George, Howland Township administrator, said Delphi has been “very cooperative” with the township over the past five weeks, and township officials are happy with the plan Delphi has presented.
One of the benefits of the plan is that it moves tractor trailers away from their messy, gravel parking area along North River Road to a more hidden location.
The area where the trailers park now also will be turned into a green space containing pine trees, St. George said.
“They said they’re very proud of that facility, and they bring people there from all over the world, and they want to make it look better than it does now,” St. George said, adding, “I think they’re working hard to be good neighbors.”
When Howland Township approved new demolition regulations Dec. 8, followed by Bazetta Township’s passing new regulations Dec. 28 (part of the plant is in Bazetta Township), Delphi complained that the regulations would make demolition more expensive.
The new regulations for the first time required companies to remove parking lots and concrete slabs during a demolition. Howland’s regulations said the slab could remain, however, if the company could show that it had a useful application.
“That’s exactly what they’ve done,” St. George said of Delphi’s requesting to keep part of the slab from Plant 13 for the use of its tractor trailers.
When Delphi officials first approached Howland Township on Jan. 24 for approval of its demolition plans, it was planning to demolish more than two buildings, St. George said.
Mike Sliwinski, Trumbull County’s chief building official, said Delphi was seeking to remove all five of its vacant buildings when Delphi officials first presented demolition plans Jan. 26.
A week later, Delphi modified the plans to include only the engineering building and Plant 13, Sliwinski said. The building department approved Delphi’s demolition plans Tuesday.