Published Monday, January 13, 2003
Herald Staff Writer
Mercer County Area Agency on Aging, Inc., will be opening bids Thursday to sell the former senior center at 1020 Spearman Ave., Farrell, and the agency's Chief Executive Officer Anne Marie Spiardi is hoping that someone will buy it and "use insight" to bring something into the area.
According Mrs. Spiardi, the agency sent out over 30 bid packets describing the building and its location to parties that might be interested in buying the former J.A. Farrell School.
"We won't know the response until we open them Thursday," she said. Bids will be examined at the agency's board meeting at 11 a.m. at the Shenango Valley Center for Aging and Geriatric Health on North Buhl Farm Drive in Hermitage.
"We've asked them (people who received bid packets) to give us a proposal, then the board will review it," Mrs. Spiardi said.
But Farrell Mayor Bill Morocco -- who said the city was among those who received a bid packet for the building in November -- said that he didn't know of anyone interested in the building. Farrell officials aren't interested in "assuming financial responsibility for the project," he said.
"It would have to be rebuilt on the inside," said Morocco. The building was gutted following asbestos removal done in anticipation of its renovation. "Lavon Saternow (Farrell's city manager) and I have heard of no interested parties. Of course we wouldn't have been the ones to hear of it."
Mrs. Spiardi said the agency had no selling price in mind. Any money received from the sale of the building would go toward the new center in Hermitage, she said.
Mrs. Spiardi also said the old building, while not costing the agency anything in taxes, was costing the non-profit money to keep up in utilities and insurance.
Plans were made to renovate the former center site in the mid-nineties, but lack of money for the project and, according to Morocco, the "perception" that nearby Idaho Street is an unsafe area, pushed the project into Hermitage. The agency bought the former Bill Rudge Ministries building on N. Buhl Farm Drive in 2001 for a new center, which opened its doors last February.
The decision to locate the center in Hermitage generated controversy at the beginning of 2001. The Shenango Valley Multi-Service Center was located at the Spearman Avenue location since the late seventies. Asbestos and other problems with the former school forced the agency to move the center in January 1999 to temporary quarters Wheatland-Farrell United Methodist Church.
The agency board had indicated during that time that it would either renovate the former site or construct a new building in Farrell.
After Farrell City council decided not to donate land in the former city park for the center, the agency announced it was buying the Hermitage building, claiming Hermitage offered them a better deal.
The agency, the city of Hermitage, and county commissioners who backed the new site denied accusations of racism and behind-the-scenes deals from Farrell council when a move to Hermitage was decided in 2001.