Latest fire at vacant, flood-damaged Sinclair plant might make for quicker demolition

The latest fire burning at the former Sinclair meatpacking plant is helping in one respect.

Greg Eyerly, the city's flood-recovery director, told his weekly meeting with federal and state disaster officials that the fire that broke out Tuesday at the Sinclair plant has moved the flood-damaged plant up on the priority list of city flood-damaged properties.

Eyerly told the group of representatives from City Hall, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state Department of Homeland Security that the latest fire puts “pressure to get (the vacant plant buildings) down sooner.”

“Obviously, it needs to become a higher priority,” Eyerly told the nine other representatives that joined in around a table in a Public Works Department conference room.

The fire – which follows an earlier fire at the vacant plant this summer – has the potential to make the Sinclair buildings “an immediate threat” to public safety, a standard that could qualify the property for a FEMA-supported demolition in quicker fashion than otherwise would be the case, one state official said.

Even so, the city-owned Sinclair property, which is comprised of multiple buildings on about 30 acres of property, comes with a “lot of complications,” noted Kathy McCarthy, FEMA Public Assistance Group supervisor in Cedar Rapids.

Consultant Howard R. Green Co. has completed an engineering study of the property, and McCarthy said she will now review the study and a report from the city's Code Enforcement Office.

Todd Dolphin, FEMA's Public Assistance Group branch director in Iowa, noted that historical and environmental issues at the Sinclair site need to be sorted out. But if those issues are limited, he said, “We probably need to get it down.”