Clearing of hazardous materials from Hotel Marysville site hits roadblock
MARYSVILLE – After a major fire broke out inside the historic Hotel Marysville last summer, the city is still suffering the repercussions.
Phase one, to get the building demolished, is complete. Now, they're trying to start phase two to clear it away.
A battle over ownership of Hotel Marysville dragged on for roughly five months after a fire created instability in the historic building. That delay continues to cause problems.
After lawsuits and a lot of back and forth between the City of Marysville and the building's previous owners, demo day arrived, allowing Highway 70 to open and traffic to resume.
"So the phase two is to, ya know, take care of the hazardous materials," said Vicenzo Corazza, the public works director of Marysville.
What's left of the hotel sits encapsulated in concrete to keep the asbestos, toxic chemicals and debris from the fire under wraps. The estimated cost to haul it away is between $2 million and $4 million.
"Basically didn't meet the criteria and essentially we didn't get the grant at that time," Corazza said.
The City of Marysville applied for an Environmental Protection Agency grant to help with haul-away costs. But the deadline for the grant was Nov. 14, 2024, the same day they got the deed to the building.
"If we acquired it much sooner, say August or September, we could've had time to get the deeds and title transferred and had a public hearing," Corazza said.
Part of the grant criteria includes a public hearing for public input about what could be done with the property.
"What we did was we did those community notifications and public hearings before we actually had ownership of the site, anticipating that we would own it," Corazza said. "So we did a little bit of putting the cart before the horse."
The city says their three options right now are to re-apply for the grant in November, figure out how to move city funds around or have a private developer take it off their hands, which is what the city is hoping for.
"Of course, we want to get that site redeveloped as soon as possible it's in a prime corner," Corazza said.
They're hoping other revitalization projects nearby will provide momentum and incentive for a builder.
The city does plan to re-apply for the grant in November if a developer doesn't come forward by then.
