Highland County land bank seeing some progress, some delays on grant projects; Gross-Feibel demo cost approved

Land bank coordinator Jason Johansen informed members of the Highland County Land Reutilization Corporation (land bank) board of various timeline extension requests for a number of projects covered under state grant funding during the board’s Thursday, May 22 meeting.

The land bank board had to rebid nine properties in their list of Building Demolition and Site Revitalization grant-funded cleanups, as Johansen said the contractor notified him May 1 that the company could not complete nine of the 14 demolitions they were awarded. As a result, they are seeking to push back the timeline to the end of summer.

“Five structures have been demolished, and grading has taken place, but the properties have yet to be seeded and strawed out of the five that he completed,” Johansen said. “He did inform me he would seed and straw those five, but unfortunately he would not be able to do the remaining projects.

“We did send a letter to the contractor explaining his breach of contract and would be meeting with the board to discuss efforts to mitigate damages.”

Johansen said that he and the land bank’s attorney Todd Book divided the projects into three different bid packages of three properties each and advertised them “as soon as possible” after hearing from the original contractor.

“Due to this issue, we have requested a time extension on just those nine properties, not the remaining other properties in the program,” Johansen said. “ODOD [the Ohio Department of Development] has not yet granted that extension, but we do feel good about being approved for that, as there's other counties that have the same issue on both in both programs, brownfield and the demolition side.

“The new time frame for all work to be completed, documentation submitted to the land bank by 4 p.m. on Friday, August 29 and then I will have until September 30, which is the end of the third quarter, to submit all reporting and reimbursement requests. All other 29 demolition projects will still have a completion date of June 20 by 4 p.m.”

In response to a question from board member Lauren Walker, Johansen clarified that the Aug. 29 deadline is “contingent upon the approval of” the Department of Development and that if ODOD denies their extension request, “we’ll probably have to remove them from the program.”

Johansen then opened the new bids for the projects — receiving three to five bids on each package — with the apparent low bidders being as follows:

— Bid Package X: 112 W. Collins Ave., 226 E. South St. and 264 E. Beech St., Hillsboro: John Roberts Excavating, $25,000.

— Bid Package Y: 314 Bigelow St., 625 S. High St. and 727 S. High St., Hillsboro: John Roberts Excavating, $27,200.

— Bid Package Z: 4216 South St. and Lots 6 and 9 at 352 Johnson St. Hillsboro: Evans Landscaping, $12,320.

However, Johansen and Book pointed out that they had to “redo the math” on the bids from John Roberts Excavating, so Johansen said he  “would need to check with them to make sure” the HCLRC and contractor are in agreement on numbers.

Board member David Daniels made a motion “to enter into an agreement on those apparent low bidders as long as they meet the requirements for bidding, and there's no problems” once Johansen completes a bid analysis, which passed by the three members of the board present.

“If you come up with a math problem and we need to reconvene, I have no problem with calling a special meeting as soon as possible to make any adjustments that need to be made,” Daniels said.

Also approved was a $2,000 change order for 222 McClain Avenue in Greenfield, another project covered by the same grant program.

“We do own this property, and we did not have it in the bid documents to remove the chain link fence on each side of the property,” Johansen said. “During the demolition activities, both adjacent property owners agreed that they would be more than happy to have the fence and the trees and the brush growing up throughout the fence to be removed.

“I do want to add that Greenfield does have an ordinance now that you can’t put up a chain link fence. Of course, we're grandfathered in, but this would bring the property, I guess, up to code in that aspect.”

Aside from the nine projects being rebids, Johansen reported that “23 structures have been demolished” through the Building Demolition and Site Revitalization program thus far, with “six remaining to be done by June 20.

“Most of them have been graded, but none of them have been seeded and strawed,” Johansen said. “Usually the contractors do wait, and they do all of their properties in one day. They just go around each property and seed and straw, so not too worried about that, but we do still have six more to go, and we have little under a month to do this, and they're aware of that. I've stayed on top of that.”

For the other state grant, Johansen said that although progress is being made on the projects funded through the state’s Brownfield Remediation Program, they are asking the state to extend the deadline on all four projects, including applying for a six-month extension on one project and seeking one-year extensions on the other three.

Johansen said that a previously identified underground storage tank has been removed from the East Monroe property in Leesburg.

“After consulting with TetraTech, we have filed a six-month extension with ODOD on this project to ensure we can finalize all necessary field and laboratory activities and deliver thoroughly vetted reports,” Johansen said. “TetraTech is currently working to submit a closure assessment report to BUSTR [Bureau of Underground Storage Tank Regulations] once the soil sample data comes back. They are also working to schedule phase two soil and groundwater sampling, and the expected completion date for that project is now December 30 of this year.”

For the three underground storage tanks identified at a former machine shop in Greenfield, Johansen said “the tanks were filled in and closed in place with concrete, or what they call a slurry, which is like a concrete/sand mix.

“The phase two property assessment has been completed,” he said. “The next steps will include a second round of groundwater sampling and preparation for a phase two property assessment report. Additionally, we have requested a one-year extension on this project due to the activities that are still needing to be completed. The expected completion date for this project is now June 30, 2026.”

Johansen said that TetraTech is still “evaluating the next steps” after “contamination running south of the property” was found at a former gas station in Hillsboro.

“There is some contamination in the groundwater as well as the soil,” Johansen said. “A phase two property assessment and BUSTR report are being prepared, as well as scoping for additional work if necessary. We have also requested a one-year extension to ODOD on that project, and that is expected to be completed now on June 30, 2026.”

For the project awarded most recently — another phase of the former Rocky Fork Truck Stop — Johansen said they are seeking a one-year extension to June 1, 2026.

“Some of the activities needed to be performed as a tier one investigation or remedial action plan, development, source, treatment, injection, groundwater sampling and a remediation completion report, a tier two evaluation, a tier two model, collaboration and reporting, as well as the monitoring well abandonment,” Johansen said. “We have also had some issues obtaining access agreements from nearby property owners, so I do just want to put out there that we do appreciate any surrounding property owners that that will sign those agreements as there has been contamination found in the soil and the groundwater.

“Obtaining those access agreements is really important to satisfying Buster and getting our NFA, our no further action [letter]. Any surrounding property owners, we'd really appreciate it to to let TetraTech come and monitor their wells, do their sampling of the groundwater and the soil.”

Board president Terry Britton asked why they are seeking to extend the projects.

“Tetra Tech has mapped it out of there's about six or seven more things that they still need to do, and they've showed when they'll be completing those over the course of the next year,” Johansen said. “The issue is that they released this program back in July of 2023. We didn't get our grant agreements until — one was awarded in October, one was awarded in November, and then I think we had Rocky Fork awarded in December of 2024, so there was about a year and a half of just sitting and waiting.

“It’s hard to complete these projects in six months. I think a lot of a lot of counties are applying for extensions on their projects, just due to the time that it took to get those grant agreements, because we didn't want to get started until we had those agreements.”

Johansen added that he is also working to submit all of their reimbursement requests as soon as possible.

“All quarterly reporting has been caught up,” Johansen said. “Reimbursement requests have been started, and I plan to submit those later today. I was notified last week that the reimbursement portal will be shut down the whole month of June as they close out the [biennial] budget.

“Anything that I don't submit before June 2 would have to be submitted after July 1, which would only give me about two weeks to get everything in, so I'm going to be working on that today to try to get those all taken care of.”

In response to a question from Walker, Johansen said they have not yet received word from the state on whether their additional Brownfield grant application for the former Bell’s Foundry/Emerson Electric property has been approved.

In other discussion:

• The board agreed to an increased amount for a previously approved quote in covering demolition costs for the former Gross-Feibel Safe Company on Elm Street in Hillsboro.

Although not listed on the agenda, Hillsboro Mayor Justin Harsha made the proposal at the board’s March meeting, and the land bank board agreed to split the costs equally. The city of Hillsboro has since approved legislation to solicit bids and accept the lowest and best bid for demolition of the six parcels encompassing the property.

“The city of Hillsboro originally had a quote for $96,000 for the demolition and cleanup of Gross-Feibel,” Johansen said. “The city did accept sealed bids this month, and the lowest bid came in at $172,000.

“The city would like to know if the land bank is still able to contribute the 50 percent of the cost that was approved at our March board meeting. It was originally $48,000 would be 50 percent, but now that new amount would be $86,000 that the land bank would contribute toward that demolition.”

Daniels made a motion to accept the revised quote, which passed by a 3-0 vote.

“The fact that this is a partnership, I think we need to do our part,” Daniels said. “That’s what we’ve got the money for. That's the reason that this was created. I'm more than happy to meet our 50-percent obligation to the project.”

• As the expedited foreclosure process for 11470 Spruance Road in Marshall Township, which was submitted to the Highland County Prosecutor’s Office last spring, has been completed, Johansen announced that the land bank is “officially the new owners” of the land. After discussion, the board voted to perform an assessment on the property before determining whether to sell it immediately or seek brownfield funding for cleanup.

“This is a 8.709-acre property, formerly known as South Beach Park,” Johansen said. “The corner of the property was a former gas station and then a convenience store, and we are unaware whether the tanks have been removed or not. The property will be quite a large cleanup, and we have a strong interest from a few surrounding property owners. Some have said they would leave it as is and own, and others have said they'd use their own equipment to clean it up.”

Johansen asked the board to “create a course of how we want to deal with that property,” including whether they want to seek grant funding to clean it up or sell it.

“It's going to be a pretty big cleanup, just in the debris and trees and brush,” Britton said. “You can hardly walk through it because it's so grown up.”

According to Britton and Johansen, there is also an issue with a septic system on the property that had “about 25 trailers using one septic tank” at some point with the septic “runoff going into the pond” on the land.

“Just based off of what has been there, the history, it would be a brownfield program,” Johansen said. “We wouldn't be able to get it through our demolition program.”

Daniels said they had time to explore different options, while Walker suggested that if they choose to sell the property, the land bank should “do like a deed in escrow, contingent upon getting the property cleaned up.”

“We do have the ability to give the deed with those restrictions, say that if things aren't cleaned up the way we expect them to be, then it would revert back to the land bank,” Book said.

Daniels said he was concerned about “how deep that pit” of brownfield cleanup can be financially.

“If we've got adjoining land owners, I think that have expressed an interest, let's see what kind of interest we get from them,” he said. “It should be expressed that if we sell it this way, it won't become a part of the brownfield program.”

However, Britton asked whether the land bank should consider doing “a phase one” assessment on the property. Johansen added that previous similar assessments cost “roughly $3,500.”

“Maybe we should, just to see what’s there,” Book said.

The board voted 3-0 to perform the assessment on the property before making a decision on how to proceed further.

• As previously reported, next in line for expedited foreclosure is a 1.5-acre lot at 11040 Cathy’s Court in Paint Township, Johansen said, which involves a “burnt-out structure.” Johansen told the board Thursday that there is “strong interest” from neighbors in cleaning up and owning the property.

“I did let them know, with all this grant funding that's been coming out, we usually clean it up with the grant funding, and then we do turn around and do the sealed bid process,” Johansen said. “Six to 12 months, we'll know more on that one.”

• Book reported that he is still reviewing a previous discussion on whether the board should “reimburse the county for the tax delinquency” removed through the sale of  adjoining parcels on Heather Moor Trail at Rocky Fork Lake. The parcels, which the HCLRC obtained via tax foreclosure and sold, had $33,000 in outstanding taxes.

“We're still working on that, and we'll hopefully have some ideas for the next meeting,” Book said. “We need to decide if we want to use that for operational expenses, or how we want to go forward.”

• The board approved the financial reports as presented by Johansen. He reported a beginning balance of $356,944.52 and ending balance of $457,136.07 for April, with the land bank account receiving a $28,050 check for the sale of two parcels on Heather Moor Trail and $76,568.33 for the county’s first-half real estate settlement.

Also approved, in a separate motion, was authorization for Johansen to pay outstanding bills. Pending invoices included ones for auditing and legal fees (including to their attorney and to the Clerk of Courts for a tax foreclosure); advertising; rent; Johansen’s salary; recording fees; office supplies; and bills from contractors for work on properties, including environmental work by TetraTech as well as asbestos abatement by Rainbow Home Environmental.

• Johansen announced that the land bank office would be closed May 26-30, while the board is also skipping their June meeting due to the Juneteenth holiday. Book said they are having “one meeting that will encompass both June and July” on Thursday, July 3 at 9 a.m. at Southern State Community College.

• Following their regular meeting, the board entered an executive session with Book “to discuss pending or imminent litigation issues.” No action was taken.

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