Blighted West Main St. Properties Set to be Demolished

ZANESVILLE, OH – Plans are in the works to remove blighted properties from West Main St. in Zanesville.

Andy Roberts, the Executive Director of the Muskingum County Land Bank, says currently Erie Environmental is working on the asbestos abatement and removal on the four commercial properties and two homes, with the work wrapping up today to early next week.

He says they recently sent the bid out for the demolition project to seven companies and the winning bid was $91,348, placed by Watson General Contracting of Newark.

“We’ve identified the West Main corridor along with several other projects up through there, the Dug Road project, Putnam projects, and the old Munson School.” Roberts said. “All together there’s about $50 Million worth of investment going on in that area right now. West Main is a major corridor throughout the City of Zanesville, we’re just trying to do a little bit of our part to clean that area up, try to drag some additional redevelopment into that area.”

Roberts says the demolition project is expected to begin on March 24th and take about a month to complete.

He also says currently there are no plans for what will take the place of the demolished buildings.

“The Land Bank, the way that we view ourselves,” Roberts explained. “Is we go in, we clean the land off for redevelopment and let the market take over from there.”

The demolition project is expected to be wrapped up on April 24th.