Shey and Shields want city to look harder at keeping Sinclair smokestack; it's more than a 'wobbly stack of bricks,' says Shey

City Council members Pat Shey and Justin Shields want to see if the smokestack at the site of soon-to-be-demolished Sinclair meatpacking plant still might be saved.

Shey and Shields inserted themselves into the debate over the future of the smokestack alongside the city's Historic Preservation Commission in the face of the assertion by city, state and federal officials that the smokestack, like most of the plant's buildings, are an imminent threat to public safety and need to come down.

Greg Eyerly, the city's flood-recovery director, has said the smokestack is leaning and in precarious shape, and he has said demolition companies bidding on the demolition work has said the smokestack needs to come down so it doesn't fall on their crews.

Nonetheless, Shey – previously an at-large council member who now represents the council district in which the Sinclair plant sits – told his council colleagues on Wednesday evening that the smokestack is a “wobbly stack of bricks” to some, a piece of the city's Czech and industrial heritage. He asked Eyerly and City Manager Jim Prosser for a status report on the plans to demolish the stack.

Shields agreed. He said the smokestack was “a lot of Cedar Rapids,” a testament to workers and industry that had come before.

The demise of the stack “deserves huge discussion,” he said.

Eleven companies have submitted bids to demolish most of the flood-damaged and fire-damaged Sinclair site, with the Federal Emergency Management Agency slated to pay much of the $20-million-or-more bill.