Ten years ago this spring, a group of Springfield economic development planners, elected officials, real-estate specialists, environmentalists, residents and business owners gathered at Lanphier High School to consider the future of the Pillsbury Mills plant on the city’s northeast side.
Ideas included restaurants, hotels, mini-parks, residential development, bike trails, retail shops and state offices. Someone even floated the possibility of former grain silos as climbing towers.
Fast forward to last week and a federal indictment handed down against one of the property owners who is accused of improperly removing asbestos from the abandoned plant and later making false statements about it in a separate court case. The federal and state cases are likely to take months, if not longer, to resolve. Meanwhile, the 18-acre site at 1529 Phillips St. is in its 15th year since Cargill Corp. shut the facility down.
The spring 2006 meeting followed a 2005 “charrette” — a French term for short, intense planning sessions — to gather neighborhood suggestions for future use of the property. Funding was a question, too. The cost of knocking down the massive, blast-resistant silos alone, consultants said, could be prohibitive.
“I was there,” said John Keller, president of the Pillsbury Mills Neighborhood Association.
The ideas never went beyond planning sessions. But Keller said last week he remains hopeful that at least some of the plans pitched in 2006 could still be useful, once the court cases are settled.
“It’s hard to know right now which way it’s going to fall,” said Keller, though he added that he expected there would at least be a proper asbestos cleanup this time.
“It’s going to happen; we just don’t know when,” he said. “I think we’re going to hear more in the next couple of weeks.”