MOUNT VERNON – The Knox County Land Bank has decided to sell Shellmar Park to the City of Mount Vernon for a nominal fee.
The park is adjacent to Shellmar Industrial Park, the former site of American National Can. The Land Bank and the City are currently performing environmental work on the 27.5-acre industrial park site so that it can be sold for development.
The Land Bank acquired the one-acre park property in case it was ever needed for parking at the industrial park, said Sam Filkins, vice president of the Area Development Foundation Inc.
“The reality is we’re never going to take away a park from the community,” Filkins said in a meeting of the Land Bank Board of Directors on Friday. “We want to give it back to the city, sell it back to the city so that they can have a park for as long as they like.”
The City recently installed basketball hoops in Shellmar Park.
The Land Bank Board voted Friday to sell the park to the City for a nominal fee, probably $1, Filkins noted.
“The Land Bank Board fully supports the new community park,” he said.
The former American National Can site has been described as a “brownfield” that needed environmental remediation. Monitoring wells were installed on the property to make sure there was no leaching from the site.
“That all passed, but now we need to decommission the wells and pull them out,” Filkins stated. “We could have put the property on the market before removing the wells, but it’s much more marketable if we can say that’s all been taken care of.”
The Knox County Land Bank contracts with the Area Development Foundation to staff the land bank’s day-to-day operations, Filkins said.
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