Barrington to demolish Adco building

Barrington officials are preparing for the demolition of the Adco Van & Storage building the village bought a decade ago for a comprehensive redevelopment of the commercial area in which it lies.

The village hopes removing the building will make its approximately one-acre site more attractive to developers.

“We've had different people look at that building for different uses,” Village President Karen Darch said. “As people looked at the feasibility of reusing the building, the unfeasibility was pretty clear.”

Village board members have awarded a $110,790 contract to Langos Corporation of Barrington Hills for demolition of the structure at 322 N. Hough St.

That includes about $7,000 in final asbestos abatement, half of which is reimbursable through a $75,000 Brownfield Grant the village received from Lake County last year.

The award of the grant money is what's making this the appropriate time to tear down the building, Darch said.

Aires Environmental Consulting of Batavia previously completed a phase I remediation of the building's asbestos for $25,800, also partially funded by the Brownfield Grant.

The contract with Langos allows the village to reduce its cost by $11,000 if it opts to leave a gravel surface on the site instead of topsoil and seeding. It must inform Langos of a decision before Oct. 14.

The Adco building was the only property the village bought before it put plans to comprehensively redevelop the 14-acre “golden triangle” property on the back burner early last decade.

The triangle lies west of Route 59 between the two railroads that cross just northwest of the village's downtown.

Hopes of acquiring other properties in the triangle met with either resistance from owners or — in the case of the Burpee Co. site — the discovery that cost-prohibitive environmental cleanup work was necessary to redevelop it.

“Our focus fell onto other pieces,” Darch said of how the village's downtown redevelopment plans have since changed.

For example, the village currently is reviewing proposals from four developers for the long vacant southwest corner of Hough and Main streets at the heart of the downtown.