Work to demolish Days Inn to begin
By Anessa Myers
Published in News on August 4, 2008 1:43 PM
Nearly a year after a windstorm damaged a Wayne Memorial Drive motel, the structure is being prepared for demolition today.
Goldsboro Chief Building Inspector Ed Cianfarra said that the company tearing down the Days Inn -- A & K Grading of LaGrange -- called this morning and said that they would apply for a demolition permit today and have its equipment on the property by this afternoon.
But residents of the area shouldn't expect to see the building disappear at once.
"It will probably take about 30 days to get the building down and the property cleaned up like we want it," Cianfarra said.
The Goldsboro City Council officially condemned the structure in February -- six months after the August windstorm -- but problems with the motel owner's insurance company held up demolition of the site.
Cianfarra had hoped that demolition of the building would have been completed in June. Then there was another setback -- an inspector discovered the building contained asbestos.
Owner Mark H. Daley III had told Cianfarra that he had a letter stating that all of the asbestos had been removed years earlier.
When Cianfarra read the letter, it didn't quite say what Daley thought it did.
"Many years ago, prior to establishing the current asbestos abatement program, there was some asbestos removed, but not all of it," Cianfarra said in a previous interview.
The letter, written several years back, was from a hygienist who said the asbestos abatement requirements were filled, he added. But since then, state mandates on asbestos abatement have changed. Now, the state doesn't just go by what a hygienist says.
"They have to take samples," Cianfarra has said. "Everything had to be tested again."
The test results brought bad news.
Cianfarra said earlier that the building went through renovations several years ago where the walls were textured, only the material used for the texture had small amounts of asbestos in it. And it was in every room.
Over the past month, crews from Raleigh have been working to remove all of the asbestos as well as furniture that was still in some of the rooms.
The structure was 35 years old when storm winds tore through it, blowing off the roof and forcing 70 to 100 people out of their rooms.
The motel was the building hardest hit by the storm, city emergency officials said.
Cianfarra said he wasn't sure what would come of the property after the building is demolished.
"Daley still owns the property," he said, but he also commented that the owner has had some interested parties looking at the site.
A "land for sale" sign still appears on a fence surrounding the property on Wayne Memorial Drive, and the asking price is $1.1 million for nearly 3.3 acres.