Developers have been hesitant to buy the contaminated former Games and Lanes bowling alley site because of the extent to which it is polluted is not known.
The site that housed the former Games and Lanes bowling alley, which the city would like to rid of contamination and see redeveloped.AGAWAM — The city is seeking proposals from brownfields site assessment consultants in its efforts to clean up the polluted property that used to house the former Games and Lanes bowling alley.
“Hopefully, in the near future we can get it clean up and revitalized,” Mayor Richard A. Cohen said Monday of the dilapidated property at 346-350 Walnut Street Extension.
The mayor also said he wants to get the property back on the tax rolls. A total of $31,086 in back real estate taxes dating back to fiscal 2008 are outstanding on the property, according to city records.
Cohen and Debra S. Dachos, city planning and community development director, said there is a developer interested in the property, but declined to release a name.
Dachos said potential developers have been scared away from buying the property because the full extent of contamination from the dry cleaning chemical, trichloralethylene, a hazardous cleaning solvent, is not known.
The mayor said Manfred Tidor, the building’s owner, has spent more than $1 million in recent years to remove contamination. The state Department of Environmental Protection has certified that Tidor no longer has the financial standing to do any more cleanup, Dachos said.
The building was occupied by the uniform rental business Standard Uniform Corp. from 1969 through about the late 1980s, when the uniform company built new quarters on Silver Street. About that time, it leased out the building to Games and Lanes and several other indoor entertainment businesses.
The contamination was discovered in 1989 with the removal of an underground gasoline tank. Tidor worked to clean up the site from 1989 to 2007, according to Dachos.
The building has been vacant since at least 2001, when a small fire and malfunctioning sprinkler system caused between $50,000 and $80,000 in damage to the property.
Dachos said once she gets estimates on the cost of hiring a consultant, she will be able to seek permission from the City Council to apply to MassDevelopment, a state agency, for a grant to do a study of the contamination.
The city has sent out requests for proposals for a study that are due back May 25.
Dachos said the property is not eligible to be cleaned up by the state because there is no evidence the chemical plume, which has contaminated groundwater, is an imminent threat to public health.
The property, which consists of a building on 2.3 acres, has an assessed value of $147,500, according to Assessors Department records.