A crane sits outside an abandoned apartment building. The building caught fire in January and is awaiting demolition.
Bridgette Fox/Journal-Courier
Jacksonville is moving closer to demolishing a vacant downtown apartment building that caught fire in January, though the bidding process has ruffled some feathers at a Jacksonville company.
The building at 342 W. State St. is unsalvageable and filled with asbestos, according to officials. Because of the imminent danger of the building’s collapse, county workers in the neighboring building have been forced to relocate.
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“Eighty percent of the brick tested positive (for asbestos),” Community Development director Brian Nyberg said.
RELATED: City investigating owners of burned apartment building, looks to demolish
Mayor Andy Ezard said in March that the demolition could cost $500,000, though a Jaren Industries bid — the lowest received — put the cost at $349,350. Bids are not guaranteed to be the final cost of a project.
“We don’t deserve spending it, but unfortunately the city’s in that kind of business to take the things that happen like that, and we kind of work to remediate that,” Ezard said. “It’s a pain to take that much money out of the budget. It’s not budgeted for, but that’s why we have reserves.”
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During Monday’s city council meeting, aldermen voted 5-1 to approve cutting the typical bidding procedure short and awarding the contract to Jaren Industries, pending a court order. Officials said they’ve received multiple bids for the project but, to make sure the demolition can happen as soon as a court approves it, the city won’t take any other bids.
Owners of the property are being served with court summonses as the city moves forward with legal action against them for ordinance violations and a refusal to communicate regarding the demolition.
“We have to serve all the interested parties with a summons in the court case before we can get a demolition order,” Ezard said. “The summonses are out for service, but not all are served. Unfortunately, there is no shortcut on this.”
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After all parties are served, the city will have to wait about a month before there can be a demolition order, Ezard said.
Scott Driver, owner of Driver Construction and Grading, and C.J. Hood, representing International Union of Operating Engineers Local 965, both questioned the council’s decision to waive the bidding process.
Driver Construction and Grading owner Scott Driver (middle) and CJ Hood (right), who represents International Union of Operating Engineers Local 965, listen to Jacksonville officials talk about the bidding process.
Bridgette Fox/Journal-Courier
“There’s a lot of responsible bidders around the state that could have put in bids for that if they (Jacksonville) would have actually put it out for bid in a broader spectrum, like on a bidding platform,” Hood said.
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The city pushed back against those claims, pointing out that the building needs to come down as soon as possible and it already was open for bids.
“The bids were open for a month,” Nyberg said. “We received a lot of them; and everybody that called, I said I would let let them know what (how much asbestos) had to be abated.”
During the council’s workshop session, Driver and Nyberg also spoke about the process, Driver saying multiple contractors did not get a follow-up call about asbestos abatement.
Jacksonvlle Community Development director Brian Nyberg listens to Scott Driver speak about the bidding process for a vacant apartment building that burned in January.
Bridgette Fox/Journal-Courier
“That’s more or less why I’m here tonight, just to kind of understand the process so we don’t lose out on an opportunity again,” Driver said.
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Nyberg said he wished the company would have turned in a bid and said notices were published in the Journal-Courier, which Driver said he had seen.
“I knew it was in the paper, and that’s when I called the office,” Driver said. “I’m not going to hold your meeting up, but I just wanted to emphasize that I did call the office, I went through the proper steps, never received the actual ‘Hey, does this have has asbestos, and how we do bid it? ‘ because obviously, like Brian said, if you have asbestos, you have to bid it accordingly.”
Driver said his company also wasn’t contacted about another demolition — this one at 824 N. Clay Ave. — for which the bidding processed also was waived Monday.
“We’ll look internally and clean some things up,” Ezard said later during the City Council meeting. “There’s no conspiracy here. This building burned, we’re trying our best to get it down. And that’s it. It’s for public health and safety. There’s no … hidden story here.”
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Jaren Industries equipment has been on the property since the days following the fire as a safety precaution, before the city was certain it would have to take over the demolition.
“The vibe that I felt, that someone’s out trying to benefit from this, is not accurate,” Ezard said. “This is something the city absolutely does not want to pay for and it’s hard to wrap around because it takes away other projects, or it delays the projects.”
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The lone “no” vote to approve the waiving of bids came from Alderman Aaron Scott. He said his objection was because he felt there could be a grant opportunity that would lower the cost of a demolition or remove the city’s burden entirely.