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Dan’s Hauling & Demo workers on Thursday began the final stages of removing debris from the site of the former Tradition Leather property located at 30-41 W. 11th Ave., near the Kingsborough Elementary School.
“On Sunday I walked around the site there, and really there has been a tremendous difference,” Mayor Vince DeSantis told the Common Council on Tuesday. “That’s going to be a major improvement for that neighborhood.
The blighted property has been an eyesore for decades in the residential neighborhood, and was targeted as a priority cleanup project by Mayor Vince DeSantis and members of the Common Council this year as part of a $517,100 plan to demolish seven brownfield properties.
DeSantis on Tuesday provided the council with an update of the city’s seven-property demolition plan.
“The only one left on the list is 1 Rose St. [site of the former John Johns Buckskin Co.],” he said. “And we’re hoping to get to that, if the weather clears up, if we have a break in the snow and all of that, but if not that’ll be done in the spring.”
DeSantis said 19 Summer St., a fire-damaged property acquired by the city will now be added to the original list of seven properties being cleared by Dan’s Hauling & Demo, which has also included 70 Division Street, formerly Papa’s Glove Co., 93 S. Main St., formerly Quinn’s Paper Boxes, 6 West 8th Ave., and 7 Grandoe Lane.
DeSantis told the council the city has received approval from the Fulton County Board of Supervisors and Fulton County Solid Waste Director David Rhodes to dispose of the Tradition Leather building debris at the reduced tipping fee of $25 per ton, down from $100 per ton.
Sixth Ward Councilman Wrandy Siarkowski on Tuesday said he’s been impressed with the cleanup effort.
“I drove by Tradition Leather this morning, and it’s an amazing transformation from what was there, and what’s been cleaned up,” Siarkowski said. “It’s just astounding what they’ve done.”
The cleanup work at 30-41 W. 11th Ave. has included the removal of debris from a fire and the removal of two of the major buildings on that site. Two of the buildings from the Tradition Leather complex have been left in place for potential adaptive reuse.
The city acquired ownership of the Tradition Leather property earlier this year after months of negotiations with its previous owner. Ownership of the property enables the city to apply for state and federal funding to pay for any further soil remediation and environmental cleanup.
Tradition Leather was one of 25 brownfield properties in Gloversville that have had Phase 1 Environmental Studies conducted for them, paid for by a $300,000 Brownfields Assessment grant the city received in 2019 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
A Phase 1 Environmental study is what is known as a “desktop assessment” of the parcels, which includes a complete history for each, including any existing “spill logs” or other environmental reports that can indicate what might need to be cleaned at the sites, a crucial step in beginning the process of remediating the brownfield and bringing it back into productive use.
In September Gloversville received a new $500,000 Brownfields Assessment federal grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which will pay for the more expensive Phase 2 Environmental studies for some of the city’s brownfields, which include test borings of the soil at each property to see what contamination, if any, is present, giving the city a clear picture of what would need to be done to rehabilitate the property.
“As soon as all of [the debris] has been cleared away we’re going to do a full Phase 2 environmental assessment,” DeSantis said of the Tradition Leather site. “So, we’ll know exactly where the pollution is, where the compromise is, and we’ll get an idea of how much it would cost to remediate all of that, and bring it up to residential standards.”
DeSantis said once the Phase 2 study for the Tradition Leather site is completed the city has two different options for how to redevelop the parcel.
“One is we could apply to the U.S. EPA, as a city, for money for cleanup, or we could market the property to a developer, because the developer gets very, very generous tax credits if they have to do environmental remediation in the context of what they’re doing on the property,” he said. “What we’re hoping is that that property is going to be for new housing, or a combination of housing and a recreational area. So, even if we clean it up, ultimately, we want to get that parcel into private hands.”
