GOSHEN —

Not all is as it seems regarding the city’s part in redevelopment of the former Hawks Furniture building.

City officials want to clear the air around the project, specifically funding going toward the project and the larger River Race Redevelopment Project encompassing it. In fact, city efforts and costs related to the Hawks building will be unaffected whether the proposal by LaCasa is accepted by the Redevelopment Commission or not.

According to figures provided by City Attorney Larry Barkes, if the city accepts LaCasa’s proposal and the project ends up moving forward, the city’s costs would include $88,000 for the demolition of cinder block expansions on the building and one old loading dock, $5,000 for environmental assessment of demolished areas and $30,000 for remediation of contamination under the demolished areas if contamination is found to be similar to what they have already located on the site. However, those costs would be incurred even if LaCasa’s proposal is denied.

"If we decide we’re going to demolish the building, we’re going to have to pay for demolition costs to demolish it," Barkes said. "If we go with the LaCasa proposal we’re going to have to demolish those sections (they request). If we decide to reject LaCasa’s proposal and mothball it, we’re going to have to demolish those portions where the roof collapsed and demolish probably very similar portions we would have to demolish if we take the LaCasa proposal. There’s going to be demolition costs no matter which one of these three choices we take."

The estimated cost of demolishing the entire building is $200,000. Furthermore, no matter what portions of the building are demolished, the area underneath will have to be assessed and remediated, the costs for which climb to between $10,000 and $15,000 for assessment and $350,000 for remediation if the whole building is taken down.

"We have done limited assessment within the building underneath the foundation and, for the soil that’s beneath it, the existing foundation acts as a cap," Brownfield Coordinator Becky Hershberger said. "The only areas that need to be addressed are areas where the foundation is removed or that are exposed soil."

If the commission were to reject the LaCasa proposal and choose instead to demolish the entire building, which covers roughly 80 percent of the property, the top two feet of soil across the entire site would have to be removed. That loss of capping currently provided by the structure would result in the substantial increase in remediation cost referenced by the provided figures.

"Based on the numbers we saw from Western Rubber, it would be a very expensive project," Hershberger said, later adding "The funding that we have would not cover (all the remediation necessary) if we took the whole building down."

There would also be further costs incurred if the city chose to temporarily mothball the site in order to maintain the building until a new proposal was submitted and approved.

Among the other costs that would impact the Hawks project is the installation of a public parking lot, estimated at $231,000, which would benefit more than just the Hawks building and has been considered outside of the proposal. If the LaCasa proposal was accepted, it would not need to be constructed until 24 months after closing on the property, which is currently scheduled for June 2013, so it would not be built for four years.

Burial of power lines along the alley east of the site was estimated at $153,000 for the area of the Hawks building and another $281,000 for the area south of the building. That, too, has also been considered separately from the project and the commission has not yet determined if it will support the expense.

The two remaining items — improvement of the alley and installation of a bike path along the canal to Douglas Street — are already part of the commission’s long-term plans for the area whether LaCasa’s proposal is accepted or not. Estimated costs for those two projects add up to more than $2 million.

Redevelopment Commission chair and Goshen City Council president Tom Stump said whatever is decided about the Hawks building will affect all city efforts in the river race redevelopment area.

"If the building stands and we don’t accept this LaCasa project," Stump said, "we really take a chance of not developing any of that area until something is decided about the Hawks, which really puts us in a bad situation because that building standing there and it’s gonna be expensive to tear it down, we don’t know what problems we’re going to have tearing it down and it’s gonna be hard enough to interest people in this other property."

Stump went on to say it could be five to 10 years before anyone else shows interest in the property due to the current state of the economy.

"So with this project, if we do accept it, we eliminate a lot of problems," Stump said.