Newest prospects for Sinclair smokestack far from rosy

CEDAR RAPIDS - Greg Eyerly, the city's flood-recovery director, will tell the City Council this evening that the prospects for saving the historic Sinclair smokestack may be dimming.

Eyerly says he will tell the council that an analysis of the smokestack has determined that the upper 106 feet of the 171-foot stack will need to be removed by hand, brick by brick, to stabilize it before it is reconstructed.

This stabilization work will delay the ongoing demolition of the former Sinclair meatpacking plant by four to six weeks and cost $740,000 in costs both to stabilize the stack and to account for a delay in the demolition.

Eyerly also will tell the council that preliminary estimates to restore the stack have doubled to near $1 million.