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Cherry Avenue property can be sold

DISCUSSION -- Jefferson County Commissioners Tony Morelli, left, and Jake Kleineke talk during Thursday's meeting. -- Linda Harris

STEUBENVILLE — The Jefferson County Board of Developmental Disabilities has nixed the idea of putting an adult care facility on the county’s Cherry Avenue property, allowing the county commissioners to proceed with their original plan: Selling it.

At Thursday’s meeting, Commissioner Tony Morelli said the BDD had determined the property was not a good fit, leaving the field clear for them to put it on the market. Commissioners received just one offer when they advertised it for sale last summer, but ultimately decided to delay the sale because they want to keep the playground that’s attached to it for public use.

Morelli said another party will be looking at the building in the next week or so. Commissioners also are planning to get the property surveyed, but before they do that they want to determine whether the playground lot is on one parcel or two.

“It is important to (us) that the children’s park stays a park, no matter how we move forward with the building,” Morelli said after the meeting. “So, we will need to survey at some point.”

Mike Zinno, superintendent of the disabilities board, who wasn’t at the meeting, said later that razing the existing structure and rebuilding to suit their needs — an around-the-clock, five-bed nursing home-style facility to serve adults with developmental disabilities–would have been cost-prohibitive at the Cherry Avenue site.

“The estimate to raze the building is extremely high,” Zinno said. “Without additional funding from someone else — whether it’s through a grant or the county commissioners chipping in, we can’t do it alone. We need help. Until we have a partner we can’t do it.”

Morelli said based on their research, demolition costs alone would be in the $400,000 range.

“The building needs some repairs — a new roof and HVAC, for sure,” he said. “However, if someone was willing to put that kind of investment in it they would have a nice large building, lots of office space and storage. So, we will see if there is any interest next week when we show it. If not, we’ll need to decide what we want to do with it.”

The original buyer is said to still be interested, and Morelli said they have “another entity wanting to look at it to see if it would fit their needs.”

“We understand it is in a residential area, and we want to be selective to who we might sell it to,” Morelli said.

Commissioners, meanwhile, granted Clerk of Courts Andrew Plesich permission to purchase a new safe and dispose of two obsolete ones for just under $4,260.

Plesich told commissioners the two he needs to get rid of are “obsolete and not functioning properly.” He said the funds also would cover the cost of moving another safe assigned to his department from the courthouse basement to the auto title department.

Beth Rupert Warren was reappointed to the Jefferson County Community Action Council board, effective immediately. Her term will end Jan. 2, 2029.

Commissioners also granted permission to the Jefferson County Drug Task Force to dispose of a 2008 Chrysler Town and Country passenger van in a private sale to a salvage yard, where it can be destroyed. The vehicle has more than 160,000 miles, a blown engine that is rusting and is unsafe even for covert operations, the task force said.

They also agreed to advertise for bids for 87 octane gasoline and No. 2 ultra-low sulfur (highway) diesel fuel for the highway department, as well as mowing services, various aggregates and various bituminous and asphalt products for the engineering department in 2025. The engineer’s estimate for the mowing is $50,000.

The courthouse will be closed Monday in observance of Martin Luther King day.

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