Wyandotte Officials OK $9,600 to Fight City Hall Mold

Wyandotte officials voted Monday night to spend about $9,600 to address .

Wyandotte-based was hired to remove all furniture, equipment and counters from the basement. The company also will rip up and dispose of all the carpeting and then clean, disinfect and sanitize the basement floor.

The basement has been off-limits for more than a year. Yellow caution tape lines the stairs leading to it.

It would cost about $350,000 to fully fix the basement–a move that officials said doesn’t make sense across the street to the .

The timeline for that project could be pushed back from what was originally announced, however.

Mayor Joseph Peterson said Monday that it could be another 14 months before the entire move takes place. The move will occur in steps, with the offices of set to be relocated to the bank building next month.

“We aren’t going to sit here and wait for the entire bank building to be vacant,” City Administrator Todd Drysdale said. “As the tenants move out and relocate, we will move in. It’s going to be a work in progress for awhile.”

Currently, Chase occupies the first floor of the building and Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital occupies the third and fourth floors.

The proposal has Chase staying on the first floor, but possibly only occupying half of the 11,000-square-foot space. The hospital will move out, allowing City Hall to occupy the remaining 3 1/2 floors.

The hospital’s rehabilitation services are relocating to the , Drysdale said. The hospital’s orthopedic unit is still searching for a spot to relocate to, but intends to remain in Wyandotte, Drysdale said.

“It’s important to work with them and to keep them in Wyandotte,” he said. “They bring in a ton of patients and employees to our city. These are people who go to for lunch or to one of our local bars for a beer after work. Everything is about foot traffic.”

Drysdale said flooding problems in the basement of City Hall escalated after the 2010 demolition of the adjoining city-owned building that formerly housed Fogel Furniture. Since that time, he said, crews from the city’s have been brought in to clean up any standing water after it rains.

Some city officials questioned whether everything possible is being done to address the mold concerns.

“Common sense says if you don’t stop water from coming in … the mold is just going to continue to grow,” Councilwoman Sheri Sutherby-Fricke said. “Are we dealing with stopping the origination of what is causing the problem?”

Drysdale said the key part to fighting the problem is getting rid of everything in the basement that could be festering mold growth. Once the furniture and carpeting is removed and the floor is sanitized, he said, city crews will be able to combat the growth of new mold.

“As long as water comes in, and we clean it immediately, mold won’t grow,” Drysdale said.