The ground after: settlements, demolition, and the implosion

1997 – 2001

The city's purchase, announced and accomplished: The afterlife of the site was negotiated before it was visible. The City of Mishawaka's counsel — the firm's published account is the record — negotiated the city's purchase of the property out of bankruptcy court and crafted a prospective purchaser agreement with the Department of Justice, the EPA, and the state environmental agency under which the city could take the ground without inheriting its cleanup liability. The state's own bulletin fixes the mechanics: the Indiana Brownfields Bulletin (Indiana Finance Authority, second quarter 1999) records that the city signed a lease with the bankruptcy trustee carrying an option to purchase, exercised in early 1999. The plan the bulletin prints was to raze fifty-eight buildings covering 1.7 million square feet on the forty-three-acre site, demolition to run from August 1999 to August 2000 with state oversight of asbestos removal, at a city-estimated cost of about ten million dollars. In March 2000 the city was approved for a $1.3 million Indiana Brownfields remediation loan (Bulletin, third quarter 2000). The law firm's account gives the site as about fifty-seven buildings and nearly two million square feet — a surveyor's rounding apart from the state bulletin, printed as both stand.

The federal settlements: The cleanup money that is documented stands in the Federal Register. For the "Uniroyal Hill Street Site" — the federal name for the plant's ground, the site not listed on the National Priorities List — Uniroyal Technology Corporation agreed, in an administrative order on consent signed 12 January 1999, to pay $525,000 to the Superfund against the EPA's allowed claim of $1,750,000 (64 Fed. Reg. 3942). A second agreement, signed 23 December 1999, had the Uniroyal, Uniroyal Holding, and CDU parties pay $50,000 to the Superfund and $50,000 to the City of Mishawaka (65 Fed. Reg. 3709). A later chapter is documented only in part: in 2007 the City of Mishawaka sued Uniroyal Holding, Inc. in the Northern District of Indiana for cleanup funds — the docket is the record of the filing; the suit's disposition was not settled in the record reached, and the docket is named as its settling source. Secondary accounts of EPA assistance above $1.5 million and a further $100,000 Uniroyal contribution stand at summary strength in the litigation summaries and are printed at that strength only.

The implosion: Demolition ran as the plan announced, and its public climax was staged like one. On 17 June 2000, at 8 a.m., an estimated six thousand people came to watch the controlled implosion of five large vacant brick buildings of the works — five thousand sticks of dynamite, the buildings down in about thirty seconds — in the published account of the day preserved with the Ball Band Biergarten's site record and the revived brand's history. A commemorative print, "Ode to Ball Band," was postmarked at Mishawaka that day. The remaining demolition was completed in 2001, in the marker's dating — a year past the state bulletin's announced completion of August 2000, planned and accomplished printed separately as the record gives them. No plant building was kept. The forty-three acres that had held the largest fact in Mishawaka stood open at the river bend, and the smokestack's fall closed 162 years of manufacture on the ground.

Sources:

1. Indiana Brownfields Bulletin (Indiana Finance Authority), second quarter 1999 — the lease with the bankruptcy trustee, the purchase option exercised in early 1999, fifty-eight buildings and 1.7 million square feet on forty-three acres, demolition August 1999 to August 2000 under IDEM asbestos oversight, the prospective purchaser agreement, and the city's estimate of about $10 million; third quarter 2000 — the $1.3 million remediation loan approved March 2000.
2. Federal Register — 64 Fed. Reg. 3942 (agreement signed 12 January 1999: $525,000 to the Superfund against a $1,750,000 allowed claim, Uniroyal Hill Street Site, not on the National Priorities List); 65 Fed. Reg. 3709 (agreement signed 23 December 1999: $50,000 to the Superfund and $50,000 to the City of Mishawaka).
3. Plews Shadley Racher & Braun LLP, published account — the city's purchase negotiated out of bankruptcy court, the prospective purchaser agreement, and the demolition contract; the site as about fifty-seven buildings and nearly 2,000,000 square feet.
4. Published account of the implosion of 17 June 2000, as preserved with the Ball Band Biergarten site record and the revived brand's history — six thousand watchers, 8 a.m., 5,000 sticks of dynamite, five buildings, about thirty seconds; and the "Ode to Ball Band" commemorative print postmarked at Mishawaka that day.
5. Ball-Band Factory marker — the city's acquisition in 1999 and demolition completed in 2001.
6. Docket, City of Mishawaka v. Uniroyal Holding, Inc. (N.D. Ind., filed 2007) — the cleanup-funds suit; disposition not settled in the record reached.