By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — The crumbling, fire-damaged roof of a historic downtown building is being replaced this week in hopes the fix will prime the property for redevelopment.
The city hired HC Anderson Roofing Co. to remove asbestos from the former Watch Factory roof and install a new roof. The work could be completed as soon as next week.
The roof replacement is the latest effort by the city, which owns the building at 325 S. Madison St., to attract a developer. The city has had interest in the property since acquiring it as part of the UW Health Sports Factory project seven years ago, “but none of them have stuck,” Mayor Tom McNamara said.
But with new momentum for downtown that includes the potential Barber-Colman redevelopment, the UW Health Sports Factory and “all that’s going on in the heart of State Street, we feel pretty good that someone would go after it,” McNamara told the Rock River Current this week.
The work was also spurred by a fire that started after fireworks struck the building on the Fourth of July.
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The city is paying HC Anderson about $118,800 to complete the work. It previously contracted with Husar Abatement for about $115,500 to remove asbestos from the interior of the building, which included removing non-structural walls, ducts and other mechanicals to create an open area primed for a developer.
“We had all that removed as part of the asbestos abatement,” said Rob Wilhelmi, brownfields redevelopment specialist for the city. “It opens it up completely. It’s now a wide-open floor plan.”
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The work is funded partially from $275,000 a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant for cleanup of potentially contaminated properties.
The three-story cream-colored brick Watch Factory building dates back to 1875 and exemplifies industrial Italianate architecture. It operated as a manufacturing plant for watches for decades until ceasing operations in 1915.
The building later served as a Rockford Public Schools administrative headquarters until it was acquired by the city along with the former Rockford High School building, which was demolished, in 2014.