More Demo Begins- Barb's Pub, etc.

When they get done demoing old downtown will they turn it into green space ?

 

Maybe one or two blocks could serve as a "tent city" for the future & present homeless. Maybe even put in a vegetable garden or two.

To Doug Adkins -

Miss Vivian -

Vivian - I don't believe NSP dollars were used for land acquisition for the Duncan Oil/Ohio 3C rail project.  I believe Downtown Improvement Funds were used.  But I could be wrong.

Vivian Moon wrote: <FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=3>swohio75 I believe $500,000 in NSP funds were used for the Ducan Rail Project and another $500,000 in NSP funds for the Barb's Pub purchase and demo

Nope. You are wrong. I studied both deals very carefully. The money for the Duncan deal came from Downtown Improvement Fund. I had previously posted this:

The legislation that was presented and passed indicated that the sum to acquire property as part of this deal was not to exceed $550,000 and would come from the Downtown Improvement Fund (I have no idea how much money is in this fund). The city is only acquiring the property and then land-swapping with Duncan. Duncan paid $275,000 for the property that includes the old Office Outfitters store in 2002. They paid $100,000 in 2002 for the property that borders it that had previously been owned by the Finkleman family. The purchased the station property in 1997 for $39,000. So in all, the investment for the property Duncan is swapping with the city is around $414,000. Vivian is correct in that there has not been a final dollar figure attached to the city’s purchase of the land that borders First/Grimes/Central/University for the new gas station/convenience store. Just that the sum is not to exceed $550,000 from the city’s standpoint for this project. From what I can tell, there are three different property owners: 1.) The owners of the strip shopping center 2.) Revelos family 3.) Finkleman family. According to the agreement, Duncan is responsible for demolishing all buildings on all property included in this agreement—even the property that is been transferred to the city. The one exception is the Revelos building, which the city has agreed to share the expense of removing asbestos—estimated to be around $60,000.

You are also way off with your estimate of $500,000 in NSP funds for the Barb's Pub purchase and demo. The city of Middletown acquired the building that housed Barb's Pub from the State of Ohio. Online property records do not list a sales price, so let's assume it was minimal.

They paid $100,000 for the single story "blue" building next door---the funds in the legislation were broken out as follows:

$85,000 NSP
$15,000 UDAG Funds

Demo costs of $115,000 were paid for by NSP funds. Bringing the total use of NSP funds to $200,000 not $500,000 as your indicated.

My information is taken directly from the legislation and online Butler County Property Records. Now whether or not these funds can be used for this purpose, I have not researched.

I think you are getting confused with the cost of the demo of the Studio. The Finkleman family gave it to the city for like $1. Cost estimates have been several hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the city had planned to use NSP Round 2 dollars for that project, if awarded. They were not.