“It’s a sad thing to have to say, but it’s necessary,” Commissioner Tom Koogler said last week.
The estimated cost of the demolition is $200,000. It currently costs the county between $100,000 and $120,000 per year to let the building sit empty, County Administrator Brandon Huddleson said.
The site will be a greenfield for future development, Huddleson said, and will be incorporated into the county’s Facilities Master Plan, which is being updated next year. The site is just a few hundred yards west of the Greene County government office campus on Dayton-Xenia Road, as well as the development surrounding Progress Drive.
In the 1800s, a “poor-house” was built on the Greenewood Manor site to care for the area’s indigent. Over the years, a wing for the mentally ill was added, according to the Greene County Archives. In 1977, the “county home/infirmary” as it was referred to then, was torn down. The Greenewood Manor nursing home and rehab center was built on the site that same year.
While nearly every county had a county-run nursing home at one time, Greene County was one of only a few left before its closure last May.
Xenia City Council had briefly floated the idea of purchasing the property, or recommending an alternative use for it, but the idea was scrapped and no action was taken, Councilman Thomas Scrivens said.
About the Author
