The village of Ilion has purchased the Morgan Duofold building on Spruce Street with hopes of making it something more than a rundown factory on a contaminated brownfield site.

Mayor Brian Lamica made the announcement Thursday saying once the property is cleared it would be a perfect spot of development, maybe a hotel chain, touting the property's adjacency to Route 5S and the New York State Thruway. The village purchased the 14-acre parcel for just $1, officials said.

Cleaning up the site of the former factory will likely be expensive, according to village officials. But the decision was made to take it over as in art because the land was tied to a bankruptcy case and could have sat idle and crumbling for many more years had the village acted, Councilperson Chuck Lester explained Tuesday on WIBX First News with the Keeler in the Morning.

Lester said he and Mayor Lamica agreed when running for office that they would stop 'kicking the can' when it came to issues like the Duofold building, and instead ''address problems head one, and that's what we're doing.''

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