Written by Kenton Hornbeck, LINK nky reporter
The Covington city commission on Tuesday night officially approved the Cincinnati-based O’Rourke Wrecking Company for demolition of the former IRS site. The agreement passed 5-0.
The $1.293 million project is expected to take eight months.
“We went through a bid process with our project managers at J.S. Held,” City Manager Ken Smith said. “We received thirteen responsive (requests for proposals). We interviewed three, and are recommending O’Rourke as the lowest bidder.”
The contract was originally supposed to be voted on at last week’s legislative meeting, but the item was passed over and moved to the beginning of this week’s caucus meeting.
O’Rourke had the lowest bid out of the three applicants.
“We thought they were the best qualified to do the job,” Smith said.
Over the next eight months, O’Rourke’s process will include removing environmental hazards, salvaging the site, demolition of the building and regrading the site.
Action taken to resolve the site’s environmental problems will include removing asbestos in the buildings, removing three underground storage tanks, and removing an underground concrete vault.
Regarding planning, the city will now look for an engineering firm to design the project’s horizontal infrastructure which includes utilities, sidewalks and streets.
The IRS site was once home to many employees before the federal government shuttered it. The city acquired the sprawling land in 2020 and maintains hope for a forthcoming mixed-use development on the site near the city’s riverfront.
Later in the caucus meeting, Covington Economic Development Director Tom West requested to place an item on the agenda for next week’s legislative meeting. The item’s request is to submit an application to the Kenton County Planning Commission to amend the text of the Neighborhood Development Code related specifically to the Covington Central Riverfront project.
The Neighborhood Development Code was being developed at the same time as the Master Plan for the IRS site. At the time, the City had not yet purchased the IRS site. West and City officials wanted to ensure that if the City didn’t end up owning the site, whoever did would need to implement the Master Plan as closely as possible.
As they were developing the Neighborhood Development Code, each block of the Master Plan area was zoned with a subdistrict. Each subdistrict was designated as a block within the mixed-use development plan. The uses of each subdistrict was specific to what was in the original master plan.
“If the Master Plan showed an office building, a parking garage and some townhouses, then that’s what’s zoned in that area,” West said. “If it showed a hotel and a retail building, then that is what was shown for that district. This limited the flexibility of being able to put a hotel on a different block and an office building on another block.”
West went on to explain that the subdistricts were intended to be a placeholder until the City acquired the site, or someone else did. The city now owns the 23-acre site.
The benefits of the proposed Neighborhood Development Code text amendment will provide greater flexibility for the development, it’s consistent with the spirit of the Master Plan, and is a necessary step for redevelopment, West said.
If the Board authorizes the request next week, the proposed changes will be sent to the Kenton County Planning Commission.
“We just got rid of the idea of sub districts, and made it all one district,” West said. “This way the whole neighborhood can be administered as one.”
The item has been placed on the agenda for next week.
