Overgrown industrial site in central Toledo to undergo cleanup
Posted By: Toledo Blade on June 17, 2025. For more information, please click here to read the source article.
The former site of an industrial die-casting company is moving forward with a $2.6 million project to clean up a long-blighted property in the Englewood neighborhood.
Lucas County Land Bank was awarded just over $2 million earlier this month to complete environmental remediation at the former Doehler-Jarvis factory on Smead Avenue, which occupies 9 acres of land straddling a railroad line and a residential neighborhood.
The company manufactured metal automotive products like engine bearings and also made ornamental hood ornaments for Willys-Overland, Packard, Ford, and General Motors from the early 1900s to the end of the 20th century.
However, all that’s left of Doehler-Jarvis in 2025 is concrete slabs, a 6-foot concrete wall with a wire fence atop, overgrown vegetation, and the trash that has collected on the property over a decade.
David Mann, president and CEO of the Lucas County Land Bank, said he hopes the transformation of the blighted property will improve the life of residents and become the site for a more attractive development in the future.
“It has been a tragedy for people who live in that Englewood neighborhood to get up in the morning and look out their window, and for 40 or 50 years, see this neglected, overgrown, environmentally contaminated site,” Mr. Mann said. “Solving that problem is just as important as attracting something in the future there.”
The foundry ceased operation in 1998, leaving behind vacant buildings which were demolished in 2012. While the demolition removed materials containing asbestos, it did not address other environmental concerns at the site.
Lucas County Commissioner Pete Gerken said the factory is a remnant of an era when industrial and residential areas were often intertwined, which has left the city and its neighborhoods with the remnants of “decimated” factories.
“It’s right in the middle of a neighborhood, too,” Mr. Gerken said. “It’s had a devastating effect on the neighborhood when the plants left and closed, and that’s what happened at Doehler-Jarvis — you had an old foundry site that was unsecured, overrun by weeds and crime.”
Assessments of the site provided to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency show the property contains lead, semivolatile organic compounds, and volatile organic compounds in the groundwater and soil. Examples of SVOCs include pesticides, oil-based products, and fire retardants, according to the EPA.
Lucas County contributed $500,000 from economic development funds to fulfill the $2 million grant’s 25 percent matching requirement, with the commissioners voting unanimously in favor of on Tuesday.
Mr. Mann said the approval of county’s funding is one of the final steps before work can begin. Within a few months, the land bank will solicit bids for the demolition of the concrete slabs, some of which are several feet deep.
Cleanup work will result in a “full site restoration,” which is planned to include the demolition and removal of concrete foundations, removal of contaminated soil, and groundwater treatment.
After the environmental remediation has been completed and approved by regulatory agencies, it will be marketed for use as a light industrial facility or for solar power development. Options for the property will be explored as work nears completion, Mr. Mann said, but its future will look a lot better than it does now.
“I don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like,” he said, “but it will certainly include being able to look out your window if you live in that neighborhood and see something attractive for the first time in 50 or 100 years.”
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