Old Reid Hospital is an eyesore, danger zone

The deteriorated hulk that once was the Reid Hospital campus elicits emotional responses.

Nostalgia for the memories, both joyful and sorrowful, contained within the unsafe corridors.

Sadness for the transformation from an important piece of local history to a useless eyesore.

Anger at the absentee owners who squeezed what they could out of the property and stuck us with its problems.

And fear that the dangers lurking across the grounds and inside the buildings will one day lead to tragedy.

"I am literally losing sleep over the possibility for loss of life in that building," Richmond Mayor Dave Snow said.

Time, weather and vandalism turned a vibrant, functioning hospital campus into a hulking mess in the eight years since Reid Health moved to its new location a little farther north off Chester Boulevard. Little glass remains in windows. Water damage weakens interior floors. Graffiti covers much of the buildings. Fires scarred the interior and burned almost everything that's flammable. Large pits sit uncovered on the grounds. Contaminants, including asbestos, fill the air.

And yet, the building draws people to it. Some search for ghosts and spirits. Others find a spot for more graffiti. Memories pull some to the place they were born. Curiosity gets the better of others.

Doug Philbeck recently used his drone to record aerial video of the campus and buildings. The video shows two people on a roof, and he said he encountered seven people overall just checking out the building and grounds.

"I can't stress hard enough for people to not consider that a place to explore," Snow said. "It's not a place for thrill-seeking and sightseeing."

Just Monday night, an intentionally set fire burned the covered porch of Jenkins Hall, part of the former hospital closest to Chester Boulevard. Firefighters entered the building to check for individuals who might be harmed by the flames or smoke. No one was found, but the firefighters had to make their way through a damaged building that was dark and smoky.Not only do trespassers on campus endanger themselves, but they put police and fire personnel at risk, as well.

"What puts us in danger," Richmond Fire Department Chief Jerry Purcell said, "is trespassing. People should stay away from the site. It's much safer for them and safer for us."

The fire department conducts interior searches of the buildings when there's reason to believe a life could be in danger; but firefighters don't enter the building to fight fires.

"Our policies are clear," Purcell said. "We're not going to go in and fight interior fires. We'll keep a fire from spreading."

Purcell said fire calls have diminished at the former hospital as the years have passed. Other than some wooden roofs, he said, what remains is mostly metal and stone.

"At first, we were called out quite often for fires that were contents, not structural," Purcell said. "Most of the contents are burned up by now."

Richmond Police Department officers follow a similar policy to the firefighters.

RFD: Fire at old Reid intentionally set

"With the exception of potential loss of life, we do not allow our people to go inside that building," Chief Jim Branum said. "There's a huge percentage of glass missing, and the building suffers from a lot of water damage. It's very unstable, so we don't allow our people to go in it."

Branum said he spent four hours Thursday on the grounds with Reid Health employees but did not enter the building. He said the hospital employees wore masks and rubber gloves as they searched the building for documents left behind in 2008.

For the police, though, they still receive calls and regularly patrol the campus. In fact, RPD officers discovered Monday's fire.

According to the Neighborhood Update feature on RPD's website, officers have been dispatched to the 1400 block of Chester Boulevard, where the old Reid is located, 17 times already during 2016 and 53 times in the past year. Calls mainly were for trespassing, suspicious activity and mischief.

If officers find individuals, they instruct them to leave the building then take them off the property — as long as there's no other illegal activity involved.

"We get them to safety, and if an arrest is appropriate, we arrest them," Branum said. "Otherwise, we get them off the property."

Well past the point of being useful, the buildings obviously need torn down. Unfortunately, contamination and cost prevent an easy demolition. As does the ownership issue.

After fire, financial records found at old Reid Hospital

Spring Grove Development LLC owns the property, but partners Bob Ciprietti and Ernest Zamparini have stopped paying property taxes, a bill that now totals $707,320 plus taxes payable in 2016. Ciprietti and Zamparini long ago stopped replying to inquiries from local officials.

The county sued Spring Grove in December 2013 to collect the past-due property taxes but could not find the partners to serve them notice of the suit until October 2015.

"What I'd like to see is Bob Ciprietti in handcuffs in our jail," said Wayne County Commissioner Denny Burns. "It's not the fault of the city or anybody. It's the fault of a couple of shysters who people believed and they shouldn't have."

The county offered the 60-acre property, all seven parcels, in a delinquent tax sale in 2013 but received no bids, leaving the city and county trying to figure out how to handle the expense of demolition. Burns said there's a legal way for the commissioners to seize the property, but then the taxpayers would own a contaminated, useless building with a price tag he said could reach $12 million for safe demolition.

"We want to be part of the solution," he said. "We want the city to take the lead because the hospital is in the city.

"I just don't know where this is going to end. I have an obligation to protect the taxpayers of Wayne County, and I'm going to do it. It's protecting taxpayers, but then somebody's going to die."

Snow said regular discussions occur between the city and county about how to move forward, and "there are a lot of moving pieces to that." He said the site is discussed every day, but there is no timetable at this point for anything more than further study.

"We have to move forward in small pieces," he said. "We're working hard to get it down."

Lawsuit over former Reid site moves forward

The problem is asbestos, which now has been exposed as looters tore out metal to scrap, and a myriad of contaminants discovered by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. Testing revealed levels of dioxins, lithium, arsenic, thallium and gross alpha particles exceeding acceptable levels on the property. Demolition and disposal must be conducted safely, boosting the project's cost.

An environmental study done last fall by Environmental Resources Management, on behalf of Reid Health, resulted in an additional study that was completed recently.

Previous studies have raised concerns about certain areas of the property, including the northeast side, which the public used as a dumping area in past years.

The latest study is undergoing a technical review.

"IDEM technical staff are reviewing the Draft Quality Assurance Plan (QAP)," Barry Sneed, IDEM's public information officer, said in an email earlier this month. "Once that is complete, further sampling work can be done."

That requires more time and more money to even determine requirements and costs of demolition as well as proper, safe handling of contaminated materials.

It wasn't supposed to be this way when Reid built its sparkling new facility. Two years before it's move, the hospital sold its property to Whitewater Living Center LLC and paid rent until its fall 2008 move. Whitewater Living Center wanted to develop the property, eventually settling on a plan for a chain hotel, retail shops and possibly apartments.

City will get $500K loan for old Reid clean up

However, the ownership group dropped its plans when a proposed 1 percent local food and beverage tax was not adopted in the city.

That led Whitewater Living Center to sell the property in October 2008 to Rose City Development, which changed its name to Spring Grove Development LLC in 2009.

Ciprietti, Spring Grove's managing partner, trumpeted a four-phase plan consisting of student housing in phase one, a technology park in phase two, a hotel in phase three and a gated residential community for those 55 years and older in the final phase. In 2010, however, Ciprietti told Richmond Common Council it needed to create a Tax Increment Financing district to help fund the project. At that time, he told council he had the opportunity to let the facility lay dormant.

Local leaders created the TIF district in hopes of selling $1.5 million in bonds that would be repaid with TIF revenue. The city would have sold the bonds, and Spring Grove would have been responsible for repaying them. No development occurred, no TIF money was generated and no money exchanged hands.