Norwich ― Rather than continue to watch the former Capehart Mill in Greeneville collapse and remain an eyesore along the Shetucket River, city officials will seek to acquire the property, clean it up and create a riverfront park.

A year ago this month, the city was unsuccessful in its application for a $16.5 million Community Investment Fund grant to demolish the four remaining buildings, clean the contaminated soil and create the park. Now, city officials said they will approach the project piecemeal, first take ownership and then apply for grants for each step of the process.

On Tuesday, the City Council approved two resolutions to try to obtain the mill property and an adjacent parking lot off Eighth Street that would allow access to the collapsed mill buildings located across a rotted bridge at the end of Fifth Street in Greeneville.

The city Department of Planning and Neighborhood Services has applied for a $180,000 state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection grant to design and plan the environmental remediation and prepare bid specifications for the park plan.

The six-acre mill complex was built in the mid-19th century and has housed textile manufacturing, dyeing and cabinet-making operations over the years. The complex became completely vacant in about 2010 and has been abandoned. The buildings have been occupied by vagrants and vandalized, including five arson fires that have left portions of the buildings inaccessible and unsafe, the city’s CIF grant application stated.

City Manager John Salomone said the city no longer can allow the blighted ruins to remain untouched. The city has delayed foreclosing on decades of unpaid property taxes due to the contamination.

Salomone said, like the blighted former YMCA on Main Street, the city must take action. Once the city accepted ownership of the former YMCA for back taxes and sought development proposals, Mattern Construction proposed a successful plan to create a new company headquarters and restaurant space there.

Representatives of Capehart’s New York-based owner, Foot of Fifth Inc., have offered to convey the mill property to the city. The resolution approved Tuesday authorized Salomone “to review this proposal and negotiate the acquisition of property located at Fifth Street, End of Canal,” the official address of the mill. The City Council must approve any agreement.

Salomone on Thursday said the city would not be paying any money, either in city funds or grant money to acquire the long-derelict property.

“This is going to take millions to get it cleaned up,” Salomone said.

The overgrown parking lot at the north end, with an address of 6 Eighth St., no longer is part of Capehart complex. It belongs to the building across Eighth Street, now owned by Maverick Enterprises LLC, which is developing a cannabis cultivating manufacturing facility in the building at 6 Eighth St. – the former Mr. Big’s discount department store.

Maverick does not need the parking lot for its operation, said Deanna Rhodes, city director of Planning and Neighborhood Services. The resolution approved by the City Council stated that Maverick Enterprises has offered to convey the one-acre parking lot to the city in lieu of foreclosure. Rhodes said the city would agree to provide an easement to the parking lot if the company needed parking space in the future.

The city needs the parking lot to provide direct access to the decaying mill, as the former main entrance at the end of Fifth Street is collapsing along with the mill buildings.

Salomone said putting the properties in city hands makes it more likely something finally can be done with the mill property.

“We are eligible to get cleanup grants,” Salomone said of the city. “If it stayed in private hands, we can’t do that. We’d be looking for brownfield cleanup grants first.”

c.bessette@theday.com