City of Zanesville Awarded Bid for Clean up on Former Lear Property

A bid has finally been awarded for the former Lear Property on Linden Avenue.

There were about seven bids that were placed on the property, however, today the Mayor’s office signed off on a $732,000 bid by SAFECO Environmental Incorporated that’s based in Pennsylvania, according to Mayor Don Mason. 

This project will take care of the clean up above ground portion for the vast amount of construction debris that includes bricks, steel beams, and cinder blocks.

“So I can say with a great deal of pride, it’s taken us about a year and a half since we’ve acquired the property as of July of 2020 so it’s been about a year and four months and we’re moving forward with clean up. The clean up should be completed literally by the end of March,” Mayor Mason stated.

The clean up will be complete in March plus an additional 30 days following after that allows the Mayor’s office to look at additional work that may need to be done.

When asked about what this will mean for the community, Mason shared how he felt a huge insulte was done to the area and the people who worked there.

“It’s ironic in these legacy cities, and Zanesville is one, where river frontage was used for industrial purposes. The trend over the last 20 years as been to use riverfront, lakefront properties and similar more for residential and commercial attractiveness and subsequently our is we try to do something to take advantage of the fact that is one of the major rivers of Ohio and do something for the entire community and actually the region at this location,” Mayor Mason said.

Once the clean up is done, the real project for the Lear Property is just beginning. Mayor Mason explained how they are not able to work on the concrete and sub surface aspect just yet until immediately with USEPA to legally run test borings for clarification of the super fund areas and then a development plan for the area.