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KANKAKEE – Persistence is paying off for the Kankakee Regional Land Bank Authority.
The land bank has been working for more than a year to get the former Jaffe Drugs building at 217 E. Court St. in downtown Kankakee cleaned up, sold, redeveloped and back on the tax rolls.
In a nutshell, that’s the purpose of the land bank, which was formed through an intergovernmental agreement between the city of Kankakee and Kankakee County.
The Rev. Montele Crawford, executive director of the land bank, said facade work on the Jaffe building was set to begin Wednesday by PSI Construction of Kankakee.
“We’re getting there, and we should see some significant movement with Jaffe in the coming weeks,” he said Tuesday.
The land bank board met June 17 for its monthly meeting to get the final details worked out – work that was delayed for more than a month.
PSI was awarded the $10,221 contract to do the facade work that will take a week or so to complete. PSI will reflash the south parapet wall and tie it into the existing rubber roofing, as well as provide and install new sheet-metal coping over existing stone parapet cap insides.
In addition, PSI has an allowance of $1,000 for masonry repair if necessary.
The sidewalk barrier in place for a few years was finally removed this past week.
“It’s nice to show something happening there with all the environmental issues in the building,” said Matt Olszewski, a land bank board member.
Once the facade work is completed, Valor Technologies of Bolingbrook will conduct asbestos removal, which is within the boiler room, for $9,500. Crawford said July 7 is a tentative date to begin the asbestos removal work.
Once the asbestos mitigation work is completed, then the pharmaceuticals that were left from Jaffe Drugs can be removed. Midwest Environmental Consulting Services of Chicago has a $62,700 contract for that work.
At the June 17 meeting, the land bank agreed to an additional $5,600 for Midwest to monitor the air quality while the drugs are being removed. The board met with Robert Mellecker, vice president of Midwest Environmental, regarding the air-quality monitoring requirement.
Although Valor will monitor the air quality during its work, Mellecker said the air quality also would have to be measured while the drugs are removed.
“We realized this was something that we needed in order to move forward, so the board approved the air-quality monitoring,” Crawford said. “That’s to make sure that the air quality is right while their workers are in there.”
When all the dust clears, the land bank can take the next step with the Jaffe Drugs building.
“Hopefully, it’ll be ready for sale [in] early August,” Crawford said. “Right now, that’s the tentative timeline.”