Numerous bids reviewed during Highland County land bank's February meeting

Most of the Highland County Land Reutilization Corporation (land bank) board’s monthly meeting Thursday, Feb. 15 revolved around bids. The HCLRC held a bid opening for Building Demolition and Site Revitalization parcels; accepted quotes for asbestos abatement on several of those properties; and agreed to sell three parcels to the highest bidders.

A total of 62 demolition bids, from 23 different contractors, were opened by Highland County Land Bank Coordinator Jason Johansen (assisted by board president Terry Britton and legal counsel Todd Book) Thursday for properties selected for demolition using leftover state funds.

As previously reported, the land bank also has $77,895 in remaining funding from the first iteration of the Building Demolition and Site Revitalization Program, which they are still permitted to use.

Bid Package #1, which received 22 bids ranging from $24,000 up to $87,000, included 9955 U.S. 62 in Samantha (Penn Township), 142 North Fairfield St. in Leesburg (Fairfield Township) and 8151 Fall Creek Rd. in Samantha (Penn Township).

Bid Package #2, which had bids from all 23 contractors, ranged from $17,000 to $58,537.50 and included 3479 Pleasant Road in Marshall Township and 6747/6749 Heather Moor Trail in Paint Township.

Bid Package #3, for which the land bank received 17 bids ranging from $23,000 to $92,500, included two properties in the City of Hillsboro, at 140 East North St. and 212 North High St. 

A special meeting will be held Thursday, Feb. 22 at 9 a.m. for the board to award bids.

As was noted by Book and Johansen, four of the seven properties will require asbestos abatement, which — according to bid packets for that work — is to be completed by March 29, at which point the contractor(s) can begin demolition.

The board voted 5-0 Thursday to award an asbestos abatement contract to Industrial Installation Specialists, who submitted a low bid of $14,700 out of four proposals. 

On an unrelated topic, the board also reviewed and accepted the highest bids for three properties in the City of Hillsboro currently owned by the land bank. The parcels had been listed at $9,000 each for several months and had received “no serious” offers, Johansen said, so the board voted in January to accept sealed bids at a minimum of $4,000 each.

The parcels were awarded to Charles Gorman, who bid $4,100 for 229 East South St. and $4,500 for 622 South East St., and Letcher Langston, who bid $4,750.69 for 453 East Main St. 

In other discussion:

• The board approved six more properties for the list of potential sites to target using Building Demolition and Site Revitalization Program funds, as the current list, which is subject to deletions as necessary, is now at 38 properties. The county has a $500,000 set-aside from the state for this program.

Added to the list Thursday were two parcels in Fairfield Township (one on state Route 771 and one on Huff Street); two in Liberty Township (both on U.S. 62 North); and one in Madison Township (on Jefferson Street). An underground storage tank in Buford, which was taken off the list last month and moved to the Brownfield list, was put back on the Building Demolition list in February.

“TetraTech did some some assessments, and it looks like that's just going to be a cistern that holds water,” Johansen said. “From an environmental standpoint, that's good, and price-wise, that's good, too.”

He said that the quotes have come down by over $80,000 since it is not a brownfield site.

“From a health and safety standpoint, that would be good to put that into our demolition program, and removal of underground storage tanks is approved through ODD for the demolition program,” Johansen said. “They like to see a house being demoed also, or a structure. I know that the Buford school was torn down. It was not with building demolition grant funding, so we have to look into that in regard to [whether] they will still allow us to use that demolition money to pull out that cistern.”

Four of the other structures are blighted homes, and the Huff Street parcel was submitted by the Village of Leesburg and needs further review by the HCLRC, Johansen said.

Along with the six new properties, the current list includes 11 properties in the City of Hillsboro; six in Dodson Township; three each in Liberty and Paint Townships; two each in Brushcreek, Salem and Union Townships; and one each in Clay, Madison and New Market Townships that were already selected.

Johansen said that one of the City of Hillsboro properties — located on North High Street — was determined to be a “hot demo” due to the amount of asbestos found.

“The demolition contractor and the asbestos abatement contractor will work together,” Johansen said. “Ohio Technical Services went there to do the survey, and it was dangerous to even do the survey. They said abatement would be near impossible. 

“That's going to send up the cost a little bit on that, but it's always good to get something like that down and revitalized.”

For the Brownfield program (for which the county has a $1 million set-aside), current properties on the list are a parcel believed to contain an underground storage tank in East Monroe; a former gas station in Hillsboro; and a former machine shop in Greenfield. According to Johansen, TetraTech has completed initial assessments in East Monroe and is wrapping up the first phase of assessments on the Hillsboro and Greenfield parcels. 

“We’re gathering costs and seeing what we can what we can get done with our allotted Brownfield Remediation funding,” Johansen said. 

The former Gross-Feibel and Emerson Electric properties in Hillsboro are also listed as being on the land bank’s “radar,” Johansen said.

The county’s Brownfield project at the former Rocky Fork Truck Stop, which was part of the first round of Brownfield grants, is still being completed, Johansen said. He told the board that his fourth-quarter report for the state has been accepted, and they are waiting for the final report from TetraTech before they can get their last two reimbursements.

Britton asked Allison Young, a project manager with TetraTech, when they were “going to wrap this thing up.”

“We're out there today, and we were out there yesterday, collecting a final round of groundwater samples,” Young said. “That will be the most current information that we need for that report, so we're doing it right now. As soon as we get those back, that's the next step is to write that.”

• In non-state grant property updates, Johansen said that there are two more possible property donations that the land bank could acquire. One is a “small landlocked parcel” on Russell Street in Hillsboro that is part of an estate issue, and the other is a “very small” vacant lot on Walnut Street in Hillsboro that could be a probate matter.  

The former Enchanted Hills properties (11 parcels) are still in the expedited foreclosure process, Johansen added.

• Book also provided updates on several properties. He said they are still trying to find a way to access three parcels on Taylor Street in Madison Township, as previous attempts to partner with the Highland County Health Department have been unsuccessful.

“It looks like maybe we need to go a different route on that,” Book said. “We wanted to do this to make sure that we cross all the t's and dot all the i's as it relates to that. 

“That is a priority for the land bank. That's one of our functions is to try to clean up problem properties, and this is definitely one we're trying to think of ways to meet that obligation. We'll be looking for avenues probably outside of the Health Department at this point to do that.”

Another parcel on McClain Avenue submitted by the Village of Greenfield for consideration and discussed in January has been owned by Fannie Mae since 2005. Book said he “just got word back from Fannie Mae that a deed has been prepared” and that the HCLRC “should probably have that property in our name” by their March meeting.

The land bank board also voted in January to take steps to acquire a parcel north of Leesburg on U.S. 62 that had been “forfeited to the state of Ohio in 2014,” according to Johansen, and did not sell during sheriff’s sales. Book said he had “a document for” Britton to sign to move forward with that acquisition.

Another property, on North East Street in Hillsboro, is “a possible donation,” as Book said it is “worth at least investigating.” A mortgage lien on the property has been “extinguished,” but he said there is a “land contract that was never officially released” that would need to be taken care of.

 • The financial report was approved as presented. Johansen reported an ending balance of $419,263.75 for January, with expenses in the month including accounting software, utilities, salary/expenses, office supplies, legal fees, rent, office supplies and a reimbursement to the commissioners office for paying for the land bank’s audit, as well as payments to TetraTech for ongoing work at the Rocky Fork Truck Stop.

Also approved were the payment of outstanding bills, which included invoices for utility fees, office supplies, asbestos surveys, lawn care services, Ohio Land Bank Association membership dues, salary/expenses and legal fees. Johansen said there were also “potentially reimbursable” invoices related to Building Demolition and Site Revitalization properties, with a $470 bill for the removal of electric at one property and a $1,350 bill to redirect electric at a different property.

“We can bring that back up once I find out if those two are approved by [the Ohio Department of Development] as demo costs,” Johansen said.

• The board agreed to move their March 21 meeting start time to 9:30 a.m. instead of 9 a.m. as regularly scheduled. 

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