Work on the Lawrence Brothers and National Manufacturing properties in Sterling is continuing and includes work to clean up the properties and stabilize the structures.

At its regular February meeting, the Sterling City Council voted to pay Sterling Commercial Roofing $29,310 for installing a batten bar on the roof of one of the National Manufacturing buildings.

“Are we good on the roof? I feel like I’ve asked this before,” Mayor Diana Merdian said.

The batten bar installation was needed after crews repairing a roof drain discovered issues with the roof.

“Once they were up there fixing the roof drain, they found that the roof was not securely attached, so they would need to tighten it down so the roof drain would not get ripped out if the roof ripped out around the drain,” Scott Shumard, Sterling city manager, told the council.

Brad Schrader, Sterling public works superintendent, told the mayor and the council that more work on the roof of the National building likely will be needed.

“This is actually on the older portion of the building that is closer to First Avenue. Sterling Commercial Roofing also wanted to remind us that the roofs are very old on that building and we can continue to keep repairing them but, at some point, they are going to need a new roof,” Schrader said.

He said the western building of the National site has leaks that will need attention.

“They said this will last for a few years but there is another section that is going to need attention soon. I think this is going to be recurring until we can get a permanent fix,” Schrader told the mayor and council.

Shumard told the council the city recently received some good news from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources State Historic Preservation Office regarding the Lawrence site.

As part of the process to gain approval for cleanup of the Lawrence Brothers site, the property underwent review by the State Historic Preservation Office. That office determined the property is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

“We were trying to get the IDNR historic designation because that makes it eligible for additional funding through tax credits. That was important for us,” Shumard said in a separate interview.

That designation means work at the Lawrence Brothers site could start in the next few weeks, he said.

At the February council meeting, the council approved a payment to Gorman and Company for $17,611.36, for engineering work and securing the Lawrence cleanup.

One challenge for the asbestos cleanup at the Lawrence Brothers site has been the availability of companies to bid on the work.

“One of the things we are finding out is that there are just not enough bidders out there. The first time we put it out for bid, we got two responses. We rebid it later, trying to get contractors who would normally be tied up with schools for the summer. We rebid it and only got one bidder,” Shumard said.

The other concern is that the cost of the asbestos cleanup is more than the amount of the U.S. EPA grant that the city received for cleanup at the site. In May 2023, the city announced it received a $500,000 U.S. EPA Brownfields Cleanup Grant for the Lawrence Brothers site.

“It was a $500,000 grant for the cleanup. The original estimates were that would be enough to cover the whole thing. At this point, it’s not even going to cover the asbestos,” Shumard said.

The bids the city received for the asbestos work all came in over $1 million.

Lawrence Hardware closed in 2006 and the city of Sterling acquired the Lawrence property in 2011.