By Patrick Adrian
EAGLE TIMES STAFF
CLAREMONT — City officials said they are proceeding with the next steps to address the Sullivan smokestack, a hazardous towering remnant of Claremont’s manufacturing era on the north side of the Sugar River.
Residents began raising concerns about the smokestack this week on “What’s Up Claremont,” a Facebook community group with more than 15,000 followers.
“Not only has it deteriorated more in the last month but kids hang out there a lot,” said resident Kathleen Pope, who shared a photo of the top of the stack, which is missing roughly one-fifth of the bricks beneath the stack’s cap.
City Planning and Development Director Nancy Merrill said that the city is currently seeking quotes from structural engineers to complete a structural assessment of the smokestack and other remaining structure on the old Sullivan Machine site.
In a phone interview on Wednesday, Interim City Manager John McLean said the city budget has available money to fund the building assessment, which he planned to discuss with the city council on Wednesday evening.
In addition the Department of Public Works has already placed a temporary fencing around the site and plans to install a stronger, more permanent fencing barricade within the next few days.
“We take this issue very seriously,” McLean said. “It needs to be dealt with.”
The city has actually had the deteriorating smokestack on its radar for several years.
In 2019, the Upper Valley Lake Sunapee Regional Planning Commission partnered with Credere Associates, a New England environmental engineering group, to complete a brownfield assessment of the old Sullivan Machine site. The project was funded through an environmental assessment grant acquired by the Regional Planning Commission.
Merrill said that the first phase of that assessment is complete but the state Department of Environmental Services is still finalizing the second phase, which will confirm whether the site will require environmental mitigation to remove hazardous contaminants from the soil.
“We have been looking at this site for a while now,” Merrill said. “We have undertaken needed steps and are moving ahead with more.”
The good news for city residents is the question of what to do with the land once the environmental or structural hazards are mitigated.
The city currently owns all the riverfront parcels along the north bank of the Sugar River from Puksta Bridge to Union Bridge.
Through funding included in the brownfield assessment grant, Credere designed two concepts for a river walk or park.
Residents might decide to sell parcels to developers for commercial use or keep some publicly owned.
In 2019 Merrill was hoping to schedule a community charrette in the spring of 2029, where residents, city boards and commissions and invested community members convene to develop a cohesive vision for the riverfront. However, the arrival of the novel coronavirus put those plans to a halt.
Merrill said that she still intends to propose a community charter in the future though that discussion would first need to go through the city council.
In addition it is difficult to proceed with a community discussion about the riverfront’s future until the environmental and structure assessments are complete, Merrill said.
Developing the riverfront has been a city goal for several years. The city sought money for a river walk in 2006 through a Department of Transportation grant, but the plan was not detailed enough at the time for approval. Last year, the city completed the environmental cleanup of the Old Gasworks site, which took a process of five or six years to complete.
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