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Youngstown will demolish the former Harrison Elementary School
YOUNGSTOWN
The city’s board of control signed a contract with the school district to remove asbestos and demolish the former Harrison Elementary School.
Under the deal approved Thursday, the school district will pay $93,035 to the city for the work.
The abatement – being done by SafeAir Contractors Inc. of Mentor – starts Jan. 31 and will take about two weeks to finish immediately followed by the demolition of the former school, which should also take about two weeks, said Abigail Beniston, the city’s code enforcement and blight remediation superintendent.
A Nov. 5 fire at the school building on Commonwealth Avenue on the city’s East Side started in the gymnasium causing extensive damage.
The city’s street department demolished the gymnasium, but the rest of the former school has sat boarded up.
The school district took estimates for the work with outside contractors wanting about $200,000 to abate and demolish the building, Beniston said.
The city agreed to do it for the cost of SafeAir’s abatement and the expense of the street department taking down the former school, Beniston said.
In another matter, the board agreed to pay $24,624 to MS Consultants of Youngstown to create a map of the city’s water system to identify areas that are likely to contain lead pipes and solder.
The work, to be finished by March 9, is required to be done by every water system in Ohio for the first time under state law, said Gene Leson, the city water department’s chief engineer.