COAL GROVE — The old Carlyle Tile Co. is under deconstruction.

The rusty steel structure at 922 Pike St. in Coal Grove is a familiar sight to people traveling east on U.S. 52., but crews are helping breathe new life into the gutted-out vestige with a cleanup effort that eventually will bring more than 50 permanent jobs to the site.

Coal Grove Village Council accepted bids to remove asbestos and contaminated soil at the old plant site in June.

The remediation of the property has been paid for through a $750,000 Clean Ohio grant from the Ohio Department of Development.

The companies awarded bids for the environmental cleanup were Disposal Solutions of Middletown, which recently completed contaminated soil removal, and Environmental Demolition Inc., of Covington, Ky., which is removing asbestos from the site.

Gary Gayheart, a foreman for Environmental Demolition Inc., and his crew were starting their fifth week of removing asbestos roofing panels from the buildings.

“We take them off in full sheets and stack them in the asbestos dumpster,” Gayheart said.

The dumpster is double-lined with polymer sheets and the panels will be taken to an Environmental Protection Agency-approved landfill in Jackson.

Gayheart said the cleanup has been straight forward so far.

“There isn’t much broken material here so that’s good,” he said. “We haven’t had much trouble at all.”

He said the crew has had a steady stream of visitors.

“We seem to be pretty popular right now, which I don’t mind,” he said. “Most people are nice.”

The walls of the facility won’t be brought down for a while yet.

“They have to wait for us to get done first,” Gayheart said.

Coal Grove clerk-treasurer Debbie Fields said they were thrilled with the progress so far.

“They are moving pretty quickly,” she said. “The soil removal is already done.”

Disposal Solutions had 45 days to remove the contaminated soil and finished their part of the project in 30 days.

McGinnis Inc. owns the 30.85-acre property. Fields said once the asbestos work is done — probably in the first part of October — McGinnis will tear down the buildings.

The company also will pump $162,052 into the cleanup and make several improvements that should include dredging of the fleeting area and construction of a 52,000 square-foot building.

The South Point Barge Co. plans to create 53 new jobs on the site to support barge-to-rail and barge-to-truck container shipments.