(01-12-2016, 03:58 PM)REnerd Wrote: I've heard that the existing building is collapsing on the inside as a result of basically not having a roof for many years.
Whoever buys it and develops it will then get sued by all the residential neighbors who had land damaged by this property. Environmental liability is really high - I think $1 might be too much to pay!
I agree it's a mess, but I'm not entirely sure that just because you own a property you are liable for environmental damages from past owners. My understanding is that the current owners bought it cheap from someone else (not knowing what they were getting into) and have nothing to do with the ones who originally made the mess. Tort law is usually based on what's reasonable, and holding a current owner (who - let's say, purchased it for somewhere in the range of $500k to $1m) for multi-millions of dollars of environmental cleanup which they did not cause, is not entirely reasonable. However, if the problem got worse because they didn't do something about it during the tenure of their ownership then they would be liable for that aspect of it. Most reports on the 'toxic plume' beneath the factory say it is stable, so I'm guessing that's why they've just done nothing.
I wonder what 'collapsing' on the inside means... I'm sure anything made of wood is destroyed, but I wonder to what extend stone/concrete/brick has been destroyed by freeze/thaw of water. I would think that if nothing else the facade could easily be saved and build new on the inside like Bauer.