Wednesday, August 18, 1999
Exposed asbestos slows Colonial Inn demolition
BY WALT SCHAEFER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
EVENDALE — Plans to raze the Colonial Inn motel on Reading Road have been delayed after unknown persons tore into a wall and exposed asbestos.
Mayor Don Apking said he suspects one of several people who bought copper pipe at a city-sponsored auction earlier this summer got greedy and tore into walls containing the asbestos.
Safe removal of the asbestos is expected to cost the village about $60,000 and take about four weeks. The material is thought to cause cancer if fibers are inhaled.
“Once that asbestos was exposed, we are required to go through the proper channels to have it removed,” Mr. Apking said. “It is an expense we did not anticipate, and we have been unable to identify who exposed the asbestos.”
The 76-room inn, built in 1952, will be razed to make way for upscale retail, commercial or office development, said Councilman David Harwood, who led the drive for the village to buy the motel. It had become a community eyesore, he said.
The mayor said once the asbestos is removed, the Evendale Fire Department plans to conduct training exercises at the motel before demolition.
The mayor said the site will remain undeveloped until the city has a master plan to address development from Glendale-Milford Road south to Reading.
The village bought the motel in January for $750,000. It sits on 1.8 acres at 10200 Reading Road, south of Glendale-Milford Road.
In its heyday — years before the interstate highway system — the Colonial Inn was an upscale hostelry. In the 1950s, the motel on heavily traveled U.S. 42 lured overnight guests with attractive rooms and a restaurant.
Times changed in the 1960s, as Interstate 75 paralleled Reading Road, taking travelers away from U.S. 42.
In recent years, the inn's clientele was composed of long-term tenants, transients and some extended-stay workers employed on construction or other jobs, officials said.
The village has been studying the southern part of the Reading Road corridor for about three years, including blighted buildings. The goal is to spur redevelopment of the area.
In 1998, the village acquired the vacant parcel of land next to the motel at the southeast corner of Reading Road and Inwood Drive for about $100,000, Mr. Harwood said.
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