Erie Port Authority takes step forward, voting to condemn Erie Coke's waterfront property

It's been five months since the Erie County Redevelopment Authority and the Erie-Western Pennsylvania Port Authority joined forces to acquire the former Erie Coke Corp. property.

Members of the authority voted Wednesday to take the next step.

Authority members agreed to begin the process of legally condemning the 182-acre property located at the foot of East Avenue. While Erie Coke has been closed since 2019 due to chronic pollution issues, the property, which is adjacent to port property, had been used as an industrial site since 1833.

Property has a negative value

Money is expected to change hands, but it won't be much. The offering price for the lakefront property could be as low as $1.

More: EPA hits Erie Coke with $1M Superfund lien to recoup cleanup costs; amount likely to grow

That's because the price will be based on the appraised value of the property after subtracting the anticipated costs of environmental cleanup, demolition and asbestos removal.

The result is a negative number — a very big negative number in the millions of dollars, said Russell Warner, who, along with James Walczak, serves as special counsel for the Port Authority.

"The property is in impaired condition and we have a good foundation for this," Warner said. "You have to take the fair market value and then deduct the environmental cleanup and remediation."

Other costs also have to be taken into account.

"Those buildings have to come down," Warner said. "They are dangerous and have been torn apart by scavengers. They are attractive nuisances and could cause harm to people."

What happens next

Warner said the next step is to file the papers for a declaration of taking with the Erie County Common Pleas Court.

The speed at which the Erie County Redevelopment Authority takes possession of the property will depend largely on how quickly Erie Coke responds.

"It's likely to be a challenge," Warner said.

"I know the PA DEP has had a difficult time finding anyone who appears to represent the owners of Erie Coke," he said.

It took the company more than a year to respond on Jan. 31 to a federal indictment filed in November of 2022. That eight-count indictment charged Erie Coke and former superintendent Anthony Nearhoof with conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act for four years.

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More specifically, the indictment alleges that Erie Coke deliberately bypassed the air-pollution monitors at the plant.

If efforts to contact the company fail, Warren said the Port Authority will ask the judge to allow for an alternate means of notification to include newspaper advertising, posting the property and contacting lawyers known to have represented Erie Coke in the past.

The notification process could ultimately take a few months, he said.

Letters of assurance

Tina Mengine, CEO of the Erie County Redevelopment Authority, which is expected to secure funding for the cleanup, said she's happy to be moving forward.

"We are pleased to have this finally happen," she said of Wednesday's vote.

Mengine expressed confidence that the money can be found to clean up the site.

"There is an EPA grant that's tailor-made for this," Mengine said.

Before that process can begin, however, the Redevelopment Authority needed to make sure it wouldn't be on the hook for liens filed against the property, including a $1 million Superfund lien the EPA filed against Erie Coke in 2021.

Mengine said the the EPA and the state Department of Environmental Protection have provided the Redevelopment Authority with so-called comfort letters that provide legal assurances.

Those letters say "if you take it by eminent domain, neither agency will come back to the port or the Redevelopment Authority to seek any financial recourse," Mengine said.

"This is a huge step," Mengine said. "It took a little longer than we thought to get all these pieces in place, but we want to get it right."

There is no way of knowing if lawyers for Erie Coke, owned by trusts controlled by the family of former owner J.D. Crane, who died in 2014, will contest the condemnation process.

But given the state of the property and the absence of a remaining corporate structure, Warner said, "we do not believe there are grounds to contest the condemnation process."

He predicts, however, that it could take years before the site has been cleaned up and ready for another use.

"This is something that is really important to the community," he said. "It's going to take a while but it's the right thing to do."

Contact Jim Martin at jmartin@timesnews.com.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Erie Port Authority to vote on plan to condemn Erie Coke site