MOUNT VERNON – Mount Vernon’s Municipal Planning Commission recommended that City Council split a parcel at Coopers Progress Park in two as a step toward putting the property back to use.
Mayor Matt Starr, a member of the planning commission, said the lot split made at the Knox Land Bank’s request would create a 20.39-acre parcel and an 8.3-acre parcel.
“This is extremely important because now the Land Bank will have the deed or soon will have the deed from the parent company so that they can begin selling lots out there,” he said.
“Essentially, the Land Bank has been working with Siemens, Cooper Cameron and everybody and anybody related to them to attempt to secure ownership of the old Siemens plant,” said Zack Di Marco, attorney for the Land Bank during the Jan. 13 meeting.
The Land Bank exercised an option to purchase the property on Oct. 1, 2020, and that’s when it was discovered Schlumberger was the owner. The company didn’t want to deed over the property without performing environmental investigations.
“The good news is, to date, there's not any serious things discovered on the property. But they want to do additional investigation of the some of the properties to make sure they're safe for either tenants or, if later on somebody else owns the property, there's no contaminants that escaped at a later date,” Di Marco said.
Splitting the lot enables Schlumberger to pass the deed of the larger parcel to the Land Bank right away.
“This is big news. A significant step toward our economic development plans,” he said.
The deed transfer and sales to interested businesses will not happen tomorrow, but this is a significant step closer to that point, Starr said.
The Knox Land Bank plans to bring a preliminary site to the planning commission next month. Member Rick Dzik said they will need to consult with Law Director Rob Broeren to determine if plans for both parcels can be approved before the Land Bank owns them.
A Mount Vernon resident sent a letter asking about the property and the proposed split. Questions include whether Mount Vernon intends to build residential housing on the site or businesses. How this will affect residents nearby in the west end, including property values, was another question.
“The buildings were built for a specific purpose that was manufacturing or office. Our intent is to keep them exactly as that,” Jeff Gottke, president of the Knox County Area Development Foundation, said.
There will be no residential on the property, and with EPA restrictions and its use as a manufacturing facility for 180 years, the EPA will not allow residential use.
“We don’t want to put anybody in risk, so there will be no residential,” Gottke said.
He said having multiple tenants in the facility instead of a single tenant should stabilize things. It should generate reinvestment by the Land Bank that will enable improvements for the exteriors, parking lots and some amenities, he said.
“That neighborhood could use some reinvestment itself, and the Land Bank has some plans there to look at the quality of the housing and make some investments on its own into that neighborhood,” he said.
Anything the Land Bank does is dependent on having occupants generating some income so that those investments can be made, he said.
Until the Land Bank can sell parcels in Cooper Cameron Park it won’t generate property taxes, Gottke said. The quicker those sales are made, the faster property taxes come back to the county and income taxes for the city.
