Daniel Prince
Town to let Development Board market the Oakbrook property
Jonesville Town Council also met Tuesday evening. Town Administrator Michael Tyler updated their council on the Oakbrook property. He said he met with Development Board Director Dolton Williams last week and showed him the site. Tyler said rather than listing the property with a realtor and have to pay those fees, he plans to let the Union County Development Board market the property. He said some of the larger industries are looking for smaller buildings to use as warehouse space, and having the Development Board market the property would open it up to be listed throughout the state. He said the town could sell it or do a long-term lease, depending on the needs of the interested party. He said they have to get dirt moved off the property, fix the asphalt, and perhaps do a little more caulking on the roof, and then the property will be ready to market.
He said the Streetscape project is moving along. He said one of the main holdups is getting grants of temporary easements from landowners along Main Street. He said the town needs those in place to allow the companies to have the room they need to install the new sidewalks and things. Mayor Ernest Moore noted that rather than permanently encroaching on homeowner’s properties, the project is actually narrowing Main Street and pushing everything further out. In some cases, sidewalks that are already encroaching on private property will be torn out and moved closer to the street. Tyler said there are at least two homeowners who haven’t yet picked up the certified letters containing the easement agreement. He said the town could go through a process to get a forced easement, but that would slow the project significantly. He urged council members to talk to homeowners along Main Street and encourage them to sign the agreement if they haven’t already. He said he hopes to have the project going to bid by the end of March, with bid opening toward the end of April.
Tyler said the mill site cleanup is going well. He said preliminary plans are for the smokestack to come down on Friday, March 17. An outside demolition group will be coming in to drop the smokestack through the use of pyrotechnics. Tyler said the kids are out of school that day, and they plan to make a big event of it. He said once the date and time is firmly set, he will get the word out.
Mayor Ernest Moore said that last week, he and Tyler met with Supervisor Phillip Russell about the B Street Park. He said the county is working on a large package for the Parks and Recreation money for the county, and as part of it, he said the county plans to clean up the park, put in new equipment, and once everything is ready, the county would then give the park to the town for them to own and maintain going forward. We’ll have a couple more items from the meeting in tomorrow’s newscast.