FAIRMONT — The crumbling Box Factory is headed for demolition.
At a packed meeting Tuesday night, community members gathered to urge city council to make a decisive action on the Box Factory. The Council voted to use eminent domain to acquire the property.
“This building is probably the epitome of blight,” former mayor Tom Mainella said. “Like everybody else said, it’s a danger, it’s a menace to society. Buildings like this are an old dairy cow, they get too old to give milk. So why don’t you all do the right thing and put it out of its misery?”
Out of its misery is exactly what council members voted to do.
With the exception of Josh Rice, council members voted nearly unanimously to take ownership of the building from its current owner, Kirk Naternicola. Twelve community members spoke in support of the action prior to the vote, including two city employees. That number doesn’t include City Planner Shae Strait, who delivered a presentation on the proposal during the public hearing portion. Three spoke against the city’s planned purchase. Naternicola addressed the council at the tail end of the opposing arguments.
Overall however, the consensus appeared to support using eminent domain to remove the building. Strait called the development amazing, saying it’s something that folks in the city have dreamed about for years.
“So what happens now is the city has hired outside counsel,” Strait said. “They’re going to prepare paperwork to be filed in circuit court. We will then get a date scheduled in circuit court. Once that paperwork is filed, begin the official process where we get Naternicola Masonry paid its compensation and begin the process to acquire the property at that point.”
The city has already had a licensed outside appraisal of the building, which places it at roughly $155,000.
After the meeting, Naternicola said he wants something done with the building, and supports the city’s plans to turn the land into green space for the future rail trail connection. However, his particular cross to bear was that in 2017, the City declined to rezone the area from the neighborhood mixed use designation to industrial use, which he said, hobbled his attempts to rehabilitate the property.
“That held that property stagnant, I can’t put a business here,” he said. “So why do you fix up or tear down something when you can’t make money? I just store my stuff there.”
Naternicola said he didn’t buy the property in 2011 for it just to sit there. Pointing to some photos that were part of Strait’s presentation, Naternicola pointed out a few areas where he said he did some work to clean up part of the property.
“We have done work and put a lot of money into the place cleaning it up compared to what it was,” he said. “I would like to see something done. Hopefully, you come up with a fair value.”
He also disputed the City’s characterization of the year of negotiations that took place prior to the eminent domain move, saying there is some confusion on the amount of negotiations done. Previously, Strait said the City had reached out multiple times, including bringing Naternicola to City Hall to discuss the acquisition.
Naternicola said he hasn’t seen the city’s appraisal yet, but will be looking at how the city came up with its number. He will also be retaining legal counsel for the process.
Opposition to the move focused on no one thing. One resident expressed concern about fair remuneration to Naternicola, implying the value of any future project should be rolled into the price of the settlement. Two residents criticized the City for numerous projects that had failed to gain traction after property acquisition.
“If we are considering this, we ought to be fair about it and we ought to realize what we have promised in the past,” one resident said to the council. “There may be better places to build that recreational facility that serves more members of the community.”
City Attorney Kevin Sansalone later said during the meeting that the eminent domain process only looks at fair market value, not what the value of what it can be used for, what it was used for, what it can be used for, only the value on the day that it’s taken.
Strait also rebutted criticism of the city’s handling of other projects. Although some of the projects are taking longer than they should, city employees are still committed to completing them. What complicates matters is when factors outside the City’s control delay certain projects. Land donations such as the RJ Williams property made at the same meeting, greatly speed up projects.
“It varies day-to-day, project to project,” he said. “But that’s why we adopt these plans and we commit ourselves to them for a decade at a time. It takes that long to really get these things implemented. And that’s one thing I can say about Fairmont. Compared to some other communities, we are successful in getting our plans implemented here.”
Rice, the lone dissenting vote, reiterated his concerns over potential environmental impact. A second vote on eminent domain also took place Tuesday night. Land belonging to Albert B. Eddy was being used by the City’s Sanitary Sewer Utility, to Eddy’s surprise and displeasure. Rice voted to take Eddy’s land for use by the City’s Water and Sewer Utility.
Councilmember Rebecca Moran voted against eminent domain in the Eddy case, because it struck her as unfair that the City mistakenly began using Eddy’s land and is now taking it from him.
Rice explained that the difference in the two votes was that he is unaware of what kind of environmental dangers lurk in the Box Factory. Conversely, he knows what’s falling on the land used by the Sewer Utility, removing the uncertainty. Rice said that although he agrees that the Box Factory is an eye sore and needs to come down, he advocates for caution over action. Consequently, his vote functioned more as a protest than anything else.
He also iterated that although he is friends with Naternicola, his friendship had nothing to do with the vote. Naternicola himself said he and Rice had a brief discussion where he told Rice he didn’t want him to vote no. However, Rice told Naternicola his first duty was to the residents of Fairmont and his environmental concerns hadn’t gone away.
The next council meeting is on Nov. 28.
