Borden & Remington, one of the city’s oldest companies, is demolishing an old mill building that has, after 130 years, aged beyond affordable repair. The four-story red brick building should be history by the end of November.
The building, known as Mill 3, was vacant for two years. It was last used for rubber mixing by Pilgrim Custom Mixing, a company that has since gone out of business, according to Daniel Bogan, Borden & Remington’s president and CEO.
Mill 3 was described as in “very poor” condition when the city’s assessor’s office inspected it a few years ago. Bogan said insurance and heat costs had become too high and the mill was too run-down to be leased. The company received a demolition approval in January and began knocking down the 180,000 square-foot mill last week after removing asbestos.
“The practical thing to do was take it down,” Bogan said, though he declined to say how much the demolition will cost. Robert Bogan, the company’s general manager, said the mill is being taken apart piece by piece so the brick and wood can be reused.
The future of the land occupied by the mill since it was built about 1880, according to the assessor’s office, is undetermined, but Bogan said the company might build new space to lease. It leases to six tenants now on the 29-acre property off Water Street.
Though Mill 3 sits in the middle of the Borden & Remington site on the Taunton River, it was never used by the company, a chemical distributor, Bogan said. Borden & Remington, founded in 1837, considered demolishing Mill 3 for years, Bogan said, but first needed to receive permits from the city and state.
The Borden & Remington site, with more than a dozen buildings, is assessed at $5.6 million. The company bought it for $3 million in February 2005 and pays the city $86,000 annually in property taxes.
E-mail Grant Welker at gwelker@heraldnews.com.
|
|
|
Fall River —
