O'Neill Site Re-use Remains In Question

The former O’Neill Manufacturing site on the corner of Anderson and Howell streets will not likely be redeveloped as an industrial site.

“The local community has stated they don’t want to see the site used for industrial purposes anymore,” said Rome Floyd County Development Authority President Missy Kendrick. “So we’re not looking to market this as a development for industry.”

The seven-acre property was home to a wood product manufacturing business until it closed in 2000 following the death of its last chief executive officer, Sean O’Neill. The family-owned company was founded in 1878 in Atlanta and moved to its 102 Anderson St. address in Rome around the turn of the last century.

It’s listed as a brownfield site, which means it has some contamination from hazardous material used in the operation.

Kendrick’s comment came Friday at a public hearing hosted by the Rome Floyd County Development Authority to discuss brownfield sites around the county.

O’Neil Manufacturing has been identified as priority No. 2 for assessment, after the Battey Business Complex on the former Northwest Georgia Regional Hospital site off Division Street. Previous assessments identified impacts to the soil and groundwater from the long-time use of chemicals on the site.

The site originally came under scrutiny the year O’Neilll died after an assessment by S&ME, a private engineering firm, found two 500-gallon containers of Wood Life. The wood treatment preservative is known to contain significant amounts of the probable carcinogen pentachlorophenol.

The development authority recently received a federal grant and hired a new team, BRS Inc., to help deal with the county’s brownfield sites.

“The good news is that the state has already done a ton of remediation to the (O’Neil) site,” BRS Director of Planning and Grant Manager Alisa Goren said. “However, there’s rumor of a buried fuel tank next to the site, and we have some more work to do.”

The current grant funding allows for more assessments and testing, according to Goren. Some assessments were done in the fall of 2023 and will continue through this winter.

“Unfortunately the Georgia (Environmental Protection Division) has placed an environmental lien on the property,” Goren said. “So these will have to be addressed as well.”