JAMESTOWN, N.Y. — Just shy of a month after a fire of a still undetermined origin consumed the former Crawford Furniture Factory on Allen Street, what remains at the site resembles Dresden after World War II.
"The problem is the cost of demolishing a building like that is astronomical," said Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist, about the structure which in more recent years was being used as a storage facility.
It's estimated the tab for demolition and debris removal will exceed $1 million according to the Mayor.
"We had a similar fire not not too long ago at another furniture factory called Jamestown Royal Furniture...just the last fire alone took two to three years of our demolition money," Sundquist said.
The city is now making applications to the state and federal governments to address a backlog of building demolitions.
"The city had to do an an emergency demolition just to stop the fire, and those are things we will try and bill back to the owner. But but the owner is an LLC and they're claiming there's no money to pay for it. We'll go through the legal process to try to attach those costs to it," said Sundquist.
Jamestown was once renown for furniture making and remnants of its glorious past in that industry remain through several abandoned factories dotting the city's landscape.
While many have suggested the old factories could be repurposed through brownfield grants, it is also true, according to the mayor, that deep pocketed developers willing to invest millions have been scarce in the southern tier, an area of New York State which has experienced hard times economically for decades.
Meanwhile, others have been critical of the city not being aggressive enough to address the former factories if they can't be saved.
"We may have demolition orders on these properties, we may have condemnation orders on them, but they're still owned by private individuals," said Sundquist, an attorney by trade, who is completing the third year of his first four year term as Mayor. "In many cases, these properties are being pushed along during the county's tax auction so it goes from one person to the next. We then have to re-serve the new owner with these orders and it's just a continual cycle which makes it difficult for us to respond."