120,000 gallons of tar complicate demolition of old shingle plant
A $4.1 million cleanup and demolition of the notorious former Globe Building Materials plant is set to begin, including the removal of 120,000 gallons of gooey tar.
The tar is just one of the challenges facing workers who will clean up the 6-acre site. In the 1800s, it was a blacksmith shop, and just after the turn of the century, a pickle and vinegar manufacturer took it over. The city subsequently used it to repair streetcars.
"There certainly are some legacies we're dealing with," said Monte Hilleman, vice president for redevelopment at the St. Paul Port Authority, which now owns the site.
Asbestos covers piping and boilers. Storage tanks still hold diesel fuel. And then there is the pervasiveness of tar, which congealed onto the walls and turned them black with pitch.
"It looks like the walls are bleeding tar," Hilleman said.
Buried in the ground are three concrete vaults that together once held 400,000 gallons of the thick, black goo, which was used in the manufacturing of asphalt shingles. Almost a third of that is still there, and engineers have been studying the problem of how to get it out.
Engineers considered heating it up to make it easier to move but eventually settled on old-fashioned brute force — they'll use a backhoe to scoop it out.
The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development recently approved a $1.2 million grant for the project. DEED has issued numerous grants to St. Paul through the years, including ones for the Upper Landing project and WilliamsHillBusinessCenter, said Meredith Udoibok, the department's director of brownfields and community assistance.
With $1 million from the Environmental Protection Agency, an anticipated $600,000 from the Metropolitan Council and $200,000 from St. Paul, Port Authority officials say there will be enough money to move the project forward. The rest, they say, will be cobbled together from several sources.
The Port Authority likely will award a contract in March.
The building once provided more than 100 jobs, but it closed in 2000. In 2001, Globe Building Materials filed for bankruptcy, leaving a long line of creditors. The Port Authority bought the property at auction and targeted it for redevelopment.
For all the problems, not everything is lost. Hilleman said century-old timber beams inside the building are valuable to woodworkers, and some of the equipment inside the plant may be salvageable.
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