By Richard Kerns
rkerns@newstribune.info
tribune staff writer
KEYSER — The owner of the burned-out Comcast building on Main Street in Keyser is moving to demolish the gutted structure “before the snow flies.”
Bob Stemler, vice president of finance for Telemedia, which leased the building to Comcast, said an inspection conducted last week found minimal amounts of asbestos, which must be removed prior to demolition. Plans call for the asbestos to be removed around the first week of November, and the building to come down soon thereafter.
“We want to be a good corporate citizen,” Stemler said. “We’re sorry it’s taken this long.”
Located in the heart of the downtown business district, between the M&T Bank building and Reed’s Drug Store, the Comcast building
was heavily damaged by fire on the night of July 4. The blaze, which investigators soon determined was arson, was set around 9 p.m., just as the city's fireworks display began.
With the fire drawing a large crowd of bystanders, Keyser City Police put out a call for onlookers who may have photographed or video-taped the scene, hoping to identify a suspect. The only usable video, though, was captured by a nearby security camera, and police were unable to find any persons of interest among the images captured.
“It wasn’t enough to identify any one person,” a police spokesman said Wednesday.
The investigation remains open, but with no fresh leads.
More than three months after the fire, the Comcast building remains a hollow, burned-out shell. The front door and one window are covered with plywood, and the second-story windows blown out in the blaze remain open to the elements. The metal roof is blackened and gashed open.
As bad as the building looks from Main Street, the rear is much worse, marked by charred timbers, tacked-up plywood and a missing roof that reveal the full extent of the damage.
A separate cement-block garage behind the building largely escaped fire damage, and continues to house Comcast's cable equipment on a temporary basis.
As with the burned out remains of the Railsyde Tavern on Armstrong Street, which took seven months to be cleaned up after it was gutted by fire last August, asbestos loomed as an impediment to the cleanup of the Comcast building. If significant amounts of the insulating agent are found, extensive — and expensive — containment measures must be taken.
However, Stemler said last week's inspection uncovered only a small amount of asbestos, and its removal should be relatively easy. “It really wasn’t as bad as it could have been,” he said.
Once the asbestos is cleared, Telemedia plans to contract with a local firm to take down the building. The garage in the rear will not be removed, however, until Comcast finds a new location for its equipment. Stemler said the company has indicated that it plans to move soon on finding a new site.
Eventually, the lot will be cleared entirely and marketed as vacant downtown property.
“We don’t want to be in the real estate business,” he said.
