[font=Verdana]Having a crumbling and potentially dangerous building torn down is well worth $62,500, according to the city.[/font]

[font=Verdana]The city council voted during its meeting Monday to pay that much to D.M.D. Services of Northlake Illinois to demolish most of the remaining portions of an abandoned factory.[/font]

[font=Verdana]After the company clears the nearly acre-sized building, all that will remain is the boiler room, which will need to be taken down in a separate project because of the asbestos it contains.

The more-than-130-year-old building once housed a grain harvester manufacturer known throughout the world.

At various times in later years, it was home to Inland Wire & Cable, Sycamore Wagon Works and Essex Wire. [/font]

[font=Verdana]During the 1990s, then-owner James DiNicola used the building as a storage facility and allowed a company to keep toxic chemicals there.

When he defaulted on a loan from the city to fix a portion of the building that collapsed onto South Avenue in 1999, the city took ownership and began cleaning the site.

It hauled truckloads of old furniture, moldering clothing and soggy boxes of baseball cards from the building. But for the barrels of toxic materials that had been stored there, it sought help from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and environmental consulting firm Marlin Environmental Inc. of South Elgin.

In spring 2005, Rockford Blacktop Construction Co. of Loves Park demolished two rooms that had crumbling walls and ceilings with gaping holes for $168,250.

City Manager Bill Nicklas said he was pleased to see D.M.D.'s low bid of $62,500 for the remaining work and that the cost was kept down because the company was going to salvage the steel in the building. He said he had checked out the company, which has done work in Rochelle, and it has a good reputation.[/font]

[font=Verdana]The city received three other bids, with the next-lowest at $68,025 and the highest at $178,731.[/font]

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