The twisting tale of the old Copley Hospital building has moved from lawsuits to hazardous materials outfits.
Demolition of the former hospital building along Lincoln Avenue on Aurora’s near East Side was once considered a foregone conclusion.
That was until this past year, when potential redevelopers of the property joined with city officials, city staff and a host of consultants in donning those haz-mat suits and touring every inch of the historic building.
“We’ve done that three times,” said Mike Poulakidis, an Aurora-based attorney and businessman who is now part of a partnership seeking to redevelop the property. “We walked the entire length of that building, we had experts walk the building. We’ve been inside that building for significant amounts of time.”
And after all that, a new conclusion replaced the foregone one: the hazardous materials in the building can be remediated, and most of the property can be what Alex Alexandrou, Aurora’s chief management officer, called “a beneficial reuse.”
