Clapper, Patti, Schweizer and Mason

Plans to renovate portions of the old Molly Stark Hospital in Stark County, Ohio will have to be put on hold until the Molly Stark Park district can come up with money for asbestos removal. 

The building was constructed in 1929 (for $750,000) and “Dedicated to the people of Stark County… representing a million dollar investment in the health and well being of the community,” according to an article in the Aug. 22, 1929 edition of The Repository . 

It functioned as a tuberculosis sanatorium for a time.  After the TB threat, the hospital was converted into a facility for the mentally ill and functioned as such until 1970.  The county then used the building for medical services until it eventually closed its doors for good in 1995.

The building stood vacant for over a decade until plans were drawn up to convert portions of the old facility into a venue for public gatherings.  The park district came into possession of the property after county commissioners tried in vain for years to sell the property or find interested investors to revitalize the historic facility. 

The option appeals to the local population after such alternatives as condominiums, an assisted-living facility, a regional conference center, and even an open limestone strip mine were proposed in past years. 

The facility sat on 40-acres of land which the county hopes to convert into a massive park highlighting the hospital’s colorful history with trails for outdoor activities.  Before any work could begin the commissioners had to call asbestos experts to assess the safety of the facility and the surrounding grounds. 

McCabe Engineering and Contracting of Richfield was contracted to provide the testing services and bored 69 soil core samples in addition to sampling six shallow and two deep wells.  When the tests were completed the company found no evidence of asbestos contamination outside of the hospital itself.  However, testing inside the building revealed significant asbestos contamination.

Currently in the United States, a large majority of exposure to asbestos occurs when renovating, tearing down or repairing older buildings that were constructed with many asbestos containing materials.  Once these materials are disturbed, the asbestos can become airborn and easily inhaled, years later leading to serious diseases, such as mesothelioma and advanced lung cancers. 

Due to known risk of disease associated with exposure to asbestos, federal, state and local agencies now require adherence to strict regulations when renovating older buildings.  Asbestos remediation is an extremely expensive undertaking—the safety assessment alone cost $191,000, which was paid for by the Clean Ohio Assistance Fund grant—and finding such large amounts at a potential worksite would add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of any renovations or rebuilding.

Faced with such a roadblock, the county put their plans on hold.  All of that asbestos remains, like a ticking time bomb, until hundreds of thousands of dollars—even more than the building cost originally—can be raised to clean up the health hazard inside.