By CRAIG FREILICH

NORWOOD – The village is asking for state help so it can move on to Phase II of their plan to remediate the site of the old Norwood elementary school, which burned in 2009.

“There will be 11 acres for development if we can execute the second phase,” Norwood Mayor Jim McFaddin said.

They are urging State Sen. Joe Griffo (R-Rome) to get state help to move toward getting the site ready to offer to developers.

The building, originally Norwood Union High School when it was built in 1885, became Norwood’s elementary school. But it had long been decommissioned as a school when, in December 2007, Fire Chief Brian Haggett decided the unheated building was not safe for the tenants that were in it and it was ordered closed. The Norwood Fire Department had responded to two calls of gas leaks in the 26 Prospect St. building the week before.

The building burned in November 2009 in a fire that was called “not accidental,” but there was no report of the investigation turning up more evidence or a suspect.

Cleanup Phase 1 involved removing the bulk of the debris, including asbestos, from the roughly 9,000 square feet of the building’s west wing, where the gymnasium and lockers had been. The majority of the asbestos on the site was removed in Phase I.

In Phase II, McFaddin said, an estimated four Dumpster loads would be hauled away, “and we would need a contractor and an engineering firm to help with that.”

The front wall of the original building still stands, and would have to come down and also be carted off.

“We’re at a point now where we have to move forward in order to keep the process from going dormant.”

The remediation in Phase II is expected to cost around $200,000, McFaddin said, and that has been more than the village budgets could take.

McFaddin said there has been a $236,000 Workmans’ Compensation charge against the village, but there is a chance that negotiations to get in on the county’s plan could make for considerable savings. But it still might not be enough to finish preparing the site.

So the village board will pursue getting help through state representatives.

“Sen. Griffo has worked very well with Norwood. We’ve reached out to him many times,” and with cooperation from him and from the assemblywoman who represents the village, Addie Russell (D-Theresa), the plan would go “on the fast track if we get assistance,” McFaddin said.

After that, “Phase III would be up to the developer,” he said. At that point the site would ready for whatever a builder had in mind.

In addition to what an eventual developer would do on the site of the original building, the developer could renovate the sizeable addition to the original school structure. That addition, about 80 by 260 feet, was not damaged in the fire that destroyed the rest of the building, but it had been vandalized since then, McFaddin said.

“But it’s been pretty well cleaned up. I’m told any developer would gut it and build it the way they want it.

“I’ve been told the cost of the lot could be well over $1 million,” he said.

Ideally, the mayor said he would like to see housing there, maybe in the form of a senior citizens’ assisted living facility.

“The opportunity for such a development there would benefit the taxpayers and seniors.”

McFaddin said another idea for the site village residents would like to see is a small quarter-acre park on the site to preserve some artifacts from the old school, including its bell and dedication stones, and a small fountain outside the school building.