[font=Verdana]Demolition of 19 buildings in the path of the planned Urban Transitway could begin this month, city officials said.

The city awarded a $2 million contract to Bestech Inc. of Ellington to demolish the buildings, all on property needed for the mile-long, six-lane roadway. Bestech was the lowest of six qualified bidders, project manager Lou Casolo of the city Engineering Bureau said.[/font]

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All of the 141 residents, mostly renters, who lived in the affected properties have been relocated with city assistance, Casolo said, and asbestos abatement required before demolition is ongoing. The city also is involved in eminent domain lawsuits from about 18 property owners who have challenged the value that the city assigned their land when it condemned the property for the road.

Bestech will be required to complete the demolition by August, in time for construction to begin. The construction contract will likely be advertised and awarded this summer, Casolo said.

Before construction starts, the city must remove truckloads of contaminated soil from five of about 70 properties in the path of the roadway. The five were the only parcels with contamination that could be harmful if stirred up during construction. In all, 83 properties were investigated, including some near the proposed roadway construction. The city also is seeking federal grants to perform environmental tests on property needed for the second phase of the project.

Some of the land, including two adjacent parcels at Dock and [/font][font=Verdana]Manhattan[/font][font=Verdana] streets, is on the site of a former coal gasification plant. The soil contains arsenic, mercury, lead, cyanide, heavy metals and petroleum products that must be removed, according to environmental reports prepared for the city.

In the 1980s, about 800 drums of hazardous waste were removed from one of the sites, and it had a gasoline tank in the 1930s, the report says.

A draft cleanup plan recommends digging four feet into the ground to remove about 4,700 cubic yards of soil from both properties -- about the amount that would cover a football field with about three feet of dirt. The soil would be trucked off the site and cleaned or recycled into asphalt, the plan says.

The city is getting $225,000 from the federal Brownfields Redevelopment Program to pay for the cleanup of the two properties. It is using local funds to clean the other three sites, Casolo said.[/font][font=Verdana][/font]