With help from the state’s Office of Homes and Community Renewal, the rest of the Empire Hotel in Sharon Springs will be coming down.
The Village of Sharon Springs learned last Monday that it’s been awarded a $524,800 grant to demolish and remove the 1927 former hotel and then school, the front third of which collapsed under its own weight in August.
Though the village had been told the work was a good fit for the grant—federal money administered by the state with no local match—the application process was quite involved, said Deputy Mayor Denise Kelly, and work continues; demolition is at least a few months away.
“This is wonderful news,” Ms. Kelly said. “There’s no way the village could have afforded to take this down on its own. We would have had to borrow the money and passed that cost onto our 300 taxpayers. And even with that, it might have meant cutting services as well.”
Original estimates put the cost of demolishing and removing the building at $200,000-plus, but additional research as part of the OHCR application quickly doubled that figure.
Also as part of that process, the village was required to take over ownership of the Empire Hotel—which once boasted three corner towers and a jeweled stucco exterior, but was listed as “seriously dilapidated” in Schoharie County’s May auction of back-tax properties.
Next, Ms. Kelly said, the village has to issue a Request for Qualifications for an engineer who’ll develop a plan for taking down the complicated structure, create an Environmental Review Record—like SEQR—and apply for a Department of Labor permit on the assumption that the building contains asbestos; because of its condition, there’s no way to safely check.
Even with the grant, the village has already incurred some costs, Ms. Kelly said, hiring Delaware Engineering for an initial report and attorney Michelle Kennedy for the title transfer and none of that is reimbursable.
“But we’re so appreciative that this money exists,” she said. “OHCR has very high expectations, but they were very straightforward and cooperative…
“Everyone we dealt with was helpful and recognized the challenges small villages like ours face in dealing with old properties like this. They’re part of what makes us unique, but dealing with something like this is costly.”