Factory demolition set
Demolition of Gary, IN’s old stocking factory is likely to continue soon, local leaders say, but what will happen once the building is gone remains unclear.
Mark Wincent, the Illinois-based developer leading the project, said work had begun to clean up the site near 21st Avenue and Massachusetts Street, but the city asked his workers to stop until an actual agreement has been signed.
Deputy Mayor Geraldine Tousant said the agreement should show up on the agenda of the next Board of Public Works and Safety meeting.
Under the agreement, Tousant said, the developers will tear the building down for free and sell the leftover bricks.
Wincent said the Chicago-based Building Our Posterity Initiative/Community Partners intends to build 60 to 80 housing units in the neighborhood around the old stocking factory and lure small retail shops in or around the site of the old building.
"We're looking for stores that can help support the immediate neighborhood," Wincent said.
About 10 Gary residents have been hired, Wincent said, to do the cleanup work.
"We're taking people from the community and paying them to clean up the site," Wincent said.
However, Mayor Rudy Clay said Friday that the city is "just at first base" when it comes to development at the site of the old factory.
"Everything else is like a vision," Clay said.
The priority, Clay said, is to make sure the stocking factory building is torn down.
The abandoned building was once the site of Bear Brand Hosiery Co., which opened the plant in 1933, according to local history books.
"That stocking factory has been sitting there real ugly for so long," Clay said.
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