ONEONTA _ The Main Street facade of the former Bresee's complex is slated to be removed next week.
Main Street will be closed from Chestnut Street to Dietz Street from Sunday through Tuesday to allow for the work. The closure will begin at 6 a.m. Sunday, according to a media release from the city.
Traffic will be diverted to Grand and Market streets with Oneonta police assisting with traffic control. During the period of the street closure, there will be no bus service by Oneonta Public Transit along Main Street between Chestnut Street and Grand Street.
Free parking is available as usual in the Wall Street and Dietz Street parking lots, as well as the municipal parking garage. Oneonta police and parking enforcement personnel will pursue all parking regulations, according to city officials.
"We obviously don't want to interfere with the holiday shopping season," Mayor John Nader said.
Earlier projections for the removal of the facade were for two-to-three weeks of work.
Nader said Tuesday that interior work has been ongoing, and that the restoration of the original facade would be done later.
Aluminum sheeting, once considered stylish, has hidden the brick face of 155-161 Main St. since 1959.
The 75,000-square-foot complex has sat largely vacant for more than 10 years and has significant roof damage and other structural problems.
The complex's former owner, Maurice Ramos, donated it in 2007 to the National Emergency Medicine Association, a nonprofit medical-education organization, in exchange for a tax break. The city is leasing the complex from the Otsego County Development Corporation for $1 a year after the city and OCDC officials engineered a transfer-of-title agreement with NEMA.
The removal of the facade is a preliminary step in a larger renovation project at the complex, OCDC administrator Carolyn Lewis said.
Lewis said that larger project could begin as early as the spring with the demolition and remediation work.
OCDC is the county's oldest nonprofit economic development corporation and is not bound by the same legal obligations for public disclosure as local governments, according to city officials.
The amount of the bid awarded to Eastman Associates, which is performing the facade work, has not been released.
The leading options for the redevelopment include the creation of between 20 and 30 apartments and mixed-use, including retail, according to Bloomfield/Schon, a private Ohio firm that has a contract with OCDC to develop the property.
The city has received about $4 million in state funding. Private equity being lined up by Bloomfield/Schon, which would eventually own the property, would bring the overall cost of the project to about $9 million, according to Lewis and Nader.
