Final days for what’s left of Mill site near
Real estate agent Jerry Glenn, who represents the Magnet Mills-owning Huang family, showed up halfway through Monday night’s Clinton city council meeting.
“We are disappointed with our potential buyer/developer,” Glenn told city council.
While Glenn didn’t say that the developer has abandoned the project completely, he did say he recognized it was time to begin demolition on the last remaining structure on the property.
Glenn said that the owners already started disassembling the structure last week by dismantling a “formidable” sprinkler system.
“We’re getting it ready to crush and demolish,” he said.
They’re waiting on a piece of equipment from Indiana to start full demolition.
“It should take less than 60 days to get the masonry down, and two more weeks to get the piping out of the building,” he said.
The piece of equipment they’re using “chews down” the building and pulverizes it as it goes, separating the rebar from the concrete.
Clinch River Properties is technically the owner of Magnet Mills. That’s the LLC the Huang family formed, and the family is represented by attorney Gregg Pratt.
Pratt’s father, Charles Pratt, has been hired by the family to demo a significant portion of it, according to Glenn.
“We’re moving with whoever can move the quickest,” Glenn said. “We’d like to get this ordeal over with.”
But timing is everything.
Councilman Zach Farrar said that if movement on demolition of that property has not started on the “drop dead day,” it would be his recommendation that the city demolish it themselves.
The drop dead day is March 21, which is the date the courts ordered the demolition to begin.
That stems from a lien on the property caused by a nuisance ordinance violation that cited them for having a bunch of junk of the property.
“We’ve been promised a lot,” continued Farrar, “and those promises have not been fulfilled. So I’m making you a promise, and I promise to fulfill mine.”
City Manager Roger Houck reminded Glenn that they only had 21 days to begin.
Clinch River Properties was also supposed have a site development plan in place by that date. They don’t have one yet.
“We have retained two civil engineers to come up with a master plan for the site.
“It will not be an executable development plan because, quite honestly, we’re not sure what to do with that much property once we get it cleared,” Glenn admitted.
