Demolition cost at Sinclair plant now exceeds $20 million

The cost to tear down the former Sinclair meatpacking plant here has now gone over $20 million.

The latest addition to the demolition is the expected cost of $947,754 for an additional 123,085 cubic yards of dirt needed to fill the holes at the former plant site, according to Greg Eyerly, the city's flood-recovery director.

The latest expense will bring the expected demolition cost to $20.99 million, 90 percent of which is being paid by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, 10 percent by the state of Iowa.

Meatpacking at the Sinclair plant came to an end in the early 1990s, after which a group of local investors, including attorney Jim Piersall, purchased the property in bankruptcy court for a small amount. The investors, doing business as Central States Warehousing, leased space in parts of the plant for a number of years until the city purchased it in early 2006 for $4 million with an eye to demolition and redevelopment. The Hall-Perrine Foundation of Cedar Rapids paid half of the purchase price.

As a result, the former Sinclair plant was city-owned at the time of the June 2008 flood. Subsequent fires to the flood-damaged plant's buildings prompted FEMA to declare the site an imminent threat to public safety, a status which meant that FEMA would pay most of the cost to tear it down.

The demolition, which is being done by local contractor D.W. Zinser Co. of Walford, Iowa, began last May.

Eyerly said the project should be complete by spring. The debris from the demolition has gone to the nearby Mount Trashmore landfill, which was reopened to take in debris from the 2008 flood and which is slated to close for good on April 1.

“So we have to hustle,” Eyerly said.

Some of the bricks from the former plant will be used inside the city's new public library and a concrete placard from the plant has been moved, at a cost of $8,000, to The History Center, the city reports.

The City Council continues its appeal to FEMA to try to obtain disaster funds from the agency because the city could not reuse the former plant's buildings after the flood. The city had hoped to secure $21 million in replacement funds, though FEMA, so far, has concluded the city should receive nothing.