Former Reid heads to county tax sale

The former Reid Hospital property on Chester Boulevard is headed for a county property tax sale in September.

But that doesn't mean the community is any closer to getting the property at 1403 Chester Blvd. cleaned up.

Instead, in the background is a city-county partnership that is slowly moving ahead with contamination evaluation before even considering a plan for demolition.

"We've got these preliminary things to do before we can figure out a plan to proceed," said Tony Foster, city director of metropolitan development. "But I think the city and county all want to work together, and I think a lot of people in the community are interested in seeing this situation resolved."

But still there is the price.

"We could be looking at a cost of millions of dollars to clean this up," said Wayne County Commissioner Ken Paust on Wednesday. "So this is not going to be a quick fix. We are all going to have to work together on this one."

The abandoned former hospital campus is a haunting landscape of overgrown vegetation, a twisted wreckage of broken glass and vandalized buildings.

It has stood empty since 2008 and has been ravaged by time, weather and vandals.

Its current owners, Spring Grove Development Co. — an absentee ownership group from New York and Delaware — stopped paying property taxes on the roughly 60 acres in 2011.

They owe $464,045 in back property taxes, and the property will be up for a county tax sale on Sept. 30.

The property is divided into six tracts, and county officials have asked that, should a buyer emerge at the sale, the campus be sold in its entirety so as to avoid someone buying only the smaller tracts along Chester Boulevard.

"We are going to offer them as a single block so no one will buy the arguably saleable sections and leave the problematic tracts," said county attorney Ron Cross.

And the land has problems.

In 2013, the Richmond Unsafe Building Commission ordered the owners to clean up the property or tear it down. That has allowed city officials to begin the study of contamination.

Foster said the city received grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency through the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and has hired a firm to do initial and secondary contamination investigations.

He is hoping to get the results of the secondary study in September.

"We need the results to figure out a plan of attack for cleaning it up," Foster said. "Once we do that, then we can work on a plan for taking it down."

Asbestos is clearly an issue.

"We know there is asbestos, and you have to treat the building differently if there is asbestos," Foster said. "We have to know how much is present and how much it will cost to remove. We have to dispose of this before we can get an air quality permit to do any demolition."

Workers also did a water study to see if there are any concerns there.

"We do these preliminary things and then go out and see if there are any grants or other funding sources we can use," Foster said.

The county filed a lawsuit against the owners in 2013 to try to bring them back to Indiana to answer for the back taxes, but Cross said there has been no progress.

The tax sale is not expected to create much of a ripple in the ongoing effort to clean and demolish the property. Bidding starts at the amount of back taxes owed.

No one is expected to buy it, and if someone does, the current owner would have one year to pay the taxes, liens, penalties and other costs to reclaim the property. That means no one else can take control of the property for that year.

"We are making progress, but there is a long way to go," Foster said.

Staff writer Bill Engle: (765) 973-4481 or bengle@pal-item.com. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/billengle_PI.

Cahill property also up for sale

Also on the property tax sale list for Sept. 30 is the burned-out home at 120 N. 14th St., owned by John Cahill of rural Eaton, Ohio.

The property burned in a fire in July 2013 and has remained untouched since. The city has ordered Cahill to repair or remove the structure and Cahill has refused, filing lawsuits, appeals and claims against the city.

The city is hoping to take demolition bids on the property in September.

Cahill; his wife, Judith Ann; and a partner, Harold Keith, owe $1,098.84 on the property.