Offer to buy Lyons Falls mill rescinded
LYONS FALLS — The Lewis County Development Corp. on Wednesday decided to rescind its purchase offer on the former Lyons Falls Pulp & Paper Mill, which had been proposed for redevelopment as a business park.
"It was a very difficult decision on everyone's part," said Lawrence L. Dolhof, LCDC's president.
Despite the decision, corporation officials are still eyeing the site in hopes of finding another avenue to clean it up and re-establish it as a business center, plus they have other project plans, Mr. Dolhof said.
"We have other ideas, he said."
He declined to be more specific.
The nonprofit corporation in August signed an option to buy 10 acres of the 18-acre Lyons Falls Pulp & Paper plant parcel off Center Street from Johnson Industries Inc. for $150,000.
However, a proposed state grant fell through, and plummeting scrap metal prices over the winter made the project unfeasible, since the corporation had planned to recoup much of its demolition costs through the sale of the scrap metal.
Projected demolition expenses also ended up higher than originally expected, Mr. Dolhof said.
As the "disparity of funding and cleanup costs widened," corporation officials felt it would not be proper to pay Johnson the original offer and last month suggested that it keep the $10,000 retainer as the purchase price, he said.
Michael R. Johnson, in a letter to Mr. Dolhof that was provided to the Times, rejected the offer and suggested that the purchase option be allowed to expire. The $10,000 retainer would be returned to LCDC out of respect for county taxpayers, he wrote.
The village of Lyons Falls had been planning to submit an application for a Restore NY grant to help fund the project, but the corporation would have had to own the property by May 4. Because of the distinct possibility that other projects would be funded over that one, it didn't make sense to move forward too hastily, Mr. Dolhof said.
The former Lyons Falls Pulp & Paper mill was shut down in January 2001, idling 186 employees. The Johnsons, who own several businesses in the Carthage area, including Johnson Lumber Co. on Route 26 in the town of Denmark, in 2004 bought several mill-owned parcels for $220,000 through the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Utica.
County legislators in August approved contracting with the corporation to provide economic and community development services for up to $100,000. However, that money may be used legally only for so-called "soft costs," such as engineering and legal fees, not for property acquisition or demolition.
Legislators also have agreed to provide up to $100,000 from the county's Micro-Enterprise Revolving Loan Fund program to assist the corporation with projects that would develop shovel-ready sites.
Mr. Dolhof said that he was unsure exactly how much money has been spent on the Lyons Falls project but that a "considerable" amount was spent on legal fees.
