County Land Bank Assumes Ownership of 10-12 E. Second St., Opens Door to State Funding

City officials discuss how to proceed with the demo of a building at 10-12 E. Second St. in Jamestown following a roof collapse on Thursday, Oct. 20, 2016. The building has since undergone emergency demolition, with the controlled demolition expected to be completed by mid November.

JAMESTOWN – The city of Jamestown has received a major break when it comes to paying for the demolition of an abandoned downtown building that suffered a partial collapse last week.

On Thursday the building at 10-12 East Second Street suffered a partially collapse roof. The cause of the collapse was because the building had sat vacant without upkeep for more than 10 years.

Because of safety concerns city officials made the decision to totally demolition of the structure, which is owned Chautauqua Home Rehabilitation & Improvement Corporation (CHRIC).

The cost of the full demolition, clean up and abatement is expected to run between $150,000 and $200,000. That created a concern for city officials, because the city would have had to pay for the cost upfront and then worked to recoup that money.

However, city development director Vince DeJoy says that CHRIC was able to transfer the property over to the Chautauqua County Land Bank Corporation.

“What that means is it is now eligible to use Office of Attorney General funds from the land bank to demolish the property, so the cost burden isn’t put on the shoulders of the city of Jamestown,” DeJoy said.

DeJoy said the emergency demolition has now been completed and the city is now awaiting necessary permits to be filed and approved to move forward with the controlled demolition. He said that process will take about ten days.

“From there, the rest of the building will be demolished. The rubble pile will be cleaned up and sent to the Chautauqua County Landfill, where we’ll be using municipal landfill credits,” DeJoy said. “From there we’re going to come up with the next phase, which is basically making the site safe and not looking like a terrible ‘missing tooth’ in a hole in our downtown core.”