City approves extra $19,000 for asbestos removal; building demolition to start next weekAfter several delays, demolition of the former downtown Safeway will begin early next week.

At a special meeting Thursday, the Astoria City Council unanimously approved an additional $19,000 for removing asbestos from the roof of the old building.

City officials didn’t know the roof of the old building contained the hazardous substance, asbestos, Astoria Mayor Willis Van Dusen explained. But he said officials should have known. If they had, the contractor would have been informed, he said, and probably would have adjusted his bid to cover the cost of the special handling required to remove asbestos and dispose of it safely.

Instead, the contractor, 3 Kings Environmental, requested a $19,000 change order that was approved at the special meeting. Van Dusen estimated it will take no more than a week to remove the roof, then another four weeks to tear down the rest of the building, bringing the completion date to the first part of June.

“The process did not go smoothly, and if we had it to do again, we would do it differently,” Van Dusen said.

Meanwhile, the city continues to negotiate with the primary contractor, Dean Larson’s Custom Excavating, whose bid of $46,450 the council approved last month. Now, Larson has requested a change order for some of the demolition work below the roof of the building, Van Dusen said.

“We have not agreed on that at this time,” Van Dusen said, “but we’re very close. Mr. Larson is very reasonable and we’ll come to an agreement. I’m sure that from here on out, it will go very smoothly.”

Once the Safeway demolition is finished, the Astoria Sunday Market, which begins its 2005 season May 8, plans to move some vendor booths onto the east parking lot. But none of them would be located inside the footprint of the old store, which is to be developed into a public plaza.

At Thursday’s special meeting, the council approved a request from the Sunday Market to close 12th Street between Marine Drive and Exchange Street and to allow amplified musical entertainment on Sundays, from May 8 through Oct. 9.

The Sunday Market will provide its own traffic barricades and has made a commitment to provide portable toilets, litter containers, recycling containers and cleanup after each event. The Market will also provide a certified flagger to control traffic on Marine Drive when it uses the segment of 12th Street that’s between Marine Drive and the river.

The vote was 3 to 0. Councilor Joyce Compere, who is executive director of the Sunday Market, did not vote on either the change order or the street closure, citing her conflict of interest.

In other news from the special meeting, Van Dusen announced the names of eight people he proposes to appoint to the Chinese Park Committee. They are Dr. Duncan Law, Dr. Duane Jue, Lori Lum, Vic Kee, Debbie Chan, Agnes or Kevin Wong, Felix Chow, and Stacy Law, a student at Astoria High School.

“We’re going to have a great Chinese interpretive park and it’ll be completed within the year,” Van Dusen said.

He called the present park, located at Ninth Street, between the Transit Center and the Riverwalk, a “disaster, very poorly received.” While considering how to improve it, he said he realized it was in the area where the Chinese community had lived, and the park could be redesigned to show the history of Chinese people’s contributions to Astoria.

“The Chinese brought the railroad to Astoria, they built the jetties at the mouth of the river, they put in our sewer system, they built our river wall, which protects downtown Astoria – back-breaking hard work, not to mention all their work in the seafood processing plants,” Van Dusen said.

He said the new park will give the city an opportunity to tell that story.