The City of Wellman is contemplating how to move forward with a downtown property.

The city had a structural engineer assessment done on the Starbeck/Miller property they purchased for $1 last fall. The building is located at 119 8th Avenue. City Administrator Kelly Litwiller comments on the building’s status, “It came back that the building can be salvaged and we just need to look at the different options of what we have. We need to contact either a contractor of some sort that would be able to look at it to give us an estimate of what it would cost to do something with that, and we have not made any decisions on that right now.”

The city will determine whether to make repairs depending on the cost. The structural assessment was funded by a Washington County Riverboat Foundation mini grant. The city has also done an asbestos inspection and environmental study which were both funded entirely by the Iowa DNR Brownfields program. Asbestos will need to be removed once renovation takes place.