City of Rome Department of Public Works forces will begin demolishing the abandoned building structures at 701 Lawrence St. and 1201 E. Dominick St. within the next several weeks as part of a municipal Brownfield project that is being partially funded by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Environmental Restoration Program (ERP). The demolition work at 701 Lawrence St. is slated to begin later this week, and will likely last for 3 to 5 days. The timing for the demolition work at 1201 E. Dominick St. will begin once asbestos removal activities at the site have been fully completed.

The 701 Lawrence Street property consists of an approximately 1.5-acre parcel located on the north side of the New York State Barge Canal. The site has historically been utilized as a petroleum bulk storage facility, and several documented spills have been reported to occur at the property. As a result of these prior spill events, significant subsurface contamination has been documented at the site, including the detection of volatile organic constituents and petroleum hydrocarbons in groundwater. The successful investigation and eventual cleanup of this property will enable the City to pursue waterfront redevelopment.

The 1201 East Dominick Street site is located on the northeast corner of East Dominick St. and Locomotive Avenue. The roughly 0.5 acre parcel contains an abandoned gasoline station that was most recently used for the sale and service of used automobiles. The single story concrete block structure has a partially collapsed roof and is deemed to be unsafe by New York State Department of Environmental Conservation staff for the performance of site investigation activities. Therefore, the building will be demolished prior to a site investigation being performed by the City’s engineering consultant, Barton & Loguidice, P.C. of Syracuse.

Once the demolition activities have been completed, Barton & Loguidice, P.C. will conduct a subsurface investigation at each site to characterize the soil and groundwater quality conditions and determine if additional remediation work will be required. In accordance with the provisions of the Environmental Restoration Program, the City of Rome will be reimbursed for 90 percent of the cost to perform a site investigation at each of the City’s five Brownfield properties. However, building demolition activities are only subject to 50 percent reimbursement. Three other Brownfield sites—1030 East Dominick Street, 1333 East Dominick Street, and 508 West Liberty Street—are slated for the performance of subsurface investigation activities under the ERP program.