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Updated almost 7 years ago,
Remodeling old Garage Environmental concerns
We have an older building and looking to add office space or apartments, 1 to 2 bedroom. Recently we excavated some of an old paint booth and the worker pulled out a hydraulic small tank for a lift that used to be in operation. A small amount of oil did spill and he removed the tank. This was an auto body shop and paint booth for over 20 years and not used for mechanical work much at all. I would like to finish it out and add retail or apartment space. I spoke with an environmental firm about doing some elementary Environmental testing and they gave a proposal simply in hourly amounts. Without any definite $ proposal, this scares me in that it could be $500 or $10,000.
They recommended we speak with the Brownfield people to see if funding is available for testing and cleanup.
When the tank was removed, we were excavating not to remove any tanks, but because the concrete floor had buckled and we were told we had to level it to be able to continue to use it. We have since poured a new concrete pad.
Has anyone had any success converting older garages to office or apartments?
The back is the paint booth, I thought about using it as a structure to build a 1 bed apartment and make an exit door on the other side.
The oil in front is from my maintenance person using the bay to park his truck.