AK to demolish buildings on Curtis Street

The company began preliminary work on the buildings, isolating utility lines, this week. McCoy said walls on the five buildings marked for demolition could begin coming down as soon as Monday, Dec. 7.

Three buildings will remain at the site: the former headquarters building, boiler room and research center, which still houses about 75 AK employees. The boiler room supplies electricity to the other two buildings, according to the company.

Demolition would be completed sometime around January, with grading and seeding of the area commencing a few months later, depending on the weather, McCoy said.

The local steelmaker said it felt this was the best option for the buildings.

“We tried for a long time to market these buildings, and we have really come to the conclusion there is not much hope of that being successful. So in our opinion, taking them down and grading and seeding is really the better thing to do to prevent blight and vandalism and all the bad things that happen to vacant buildings,” McCoy said.

AK is still hopeful it will find someone to utilize its headquarters “so we are going to give that a little more time,” McCoy said, adding the company is also considering designating it as a brownfield.

Through a partnership with the city of Middletown, it would then be possible to obtain Clean Ohio funds for redevelopment of the site, said City Manager Judy Gilleland.

“We need to have further discussions on the project and the possibility of the project before we pursue brownfield money,” she said.

Overall, Gilleland said demolition of the buildings — which the company has not released a dollar amount for — is “great news” for the city in terms of establishing green space.

“In general, one of the issues that we face as an older industrial community is that we have a lack of green space for new companies to come in or new residential development to take place,” Gilleland said. “Part of our mission in turning Middletown around is to eliminate some of the blighted buildings, vacant buildings and vacant homes.”