Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

The owners of the iconic 21-story Martin Tower confirmed on Monday that they plan to tear down the former Bethlehem Steel Corp. headquarters.

It turns out that its unique cruciform shape -- a design meant to maximize the corner offices available for Steel execs -- made its redevelopment too challenging and expensive, Duane A. Wagner, a representative for owners HRP Management told The Morning Call.

The future of the 53-acre property has long been debated. A controversial 2015 rezoning made way for the building to come down, but its developers Norton Herrick and Lewis Ronca have been tightlipped about its future.

Neither returned messages seeking comment for this story.

In 2017, they obtained city permits to start a $4 million remediation and selective interior demolition of the tower and to take down several outbuildings. The tower is rife with asbestos that must be removed before it can be reused or torn down.

Plans call for stripping all of the asbestos out of the tower, leaving a shell of concrete and steel and taking down the printery, annex and boiler room.

Wagner told the Morning Call that no decision has yet been made on whether to implode the building or take it down in pieces.

City officials have been waiting for the development team to file a master plan for the property, a requirement of the 2016 rezoning. Wagner told the Call such a plan should be filed in the first quarter of the year.

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Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Martin Tower opened as Steel world headquarters in 1972 and in its heyday the property was like its own small city.

But it has sat empty since 2007 when developers bought the property. Redevelopment plans have started and stalled repeatedly, bedeviled by that tricky tower.

The iconic and polarizing building sits on the National Historic Register and city zoning once protected it from demolition.

When Ronca bought the property in 2007, he planned to save the unique, cross-shaped tower. He and his partners were the ones to get the property onto the National Historic Register.

But then the housing market crashed and his plan to reimagine the tower into high-end condos was no longer feasible

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Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Ronca's sought various incentives to make the finances of the project work with mixed success. Efforts to create a tax incremental financing district for a largely residential project failed.

Today, the property sits in Bethlehem's powerful City Revitalization and Improvement Zone, which allows Ronca to use certain future state and local taxes -- including sales and liquor-- created by CRIZ projects to pay off construction loans. . And the project's received state grants.

But none of that was enough to save the tower, which is polarizing. It is so loved by some people there's a Facebook group devoted to saving it while it is painful memory for others. Some think it is just plain ugly.

All of those corner offices make it tricky to redesign and the cost of updating the mechanical and electrical systems and installing sprinklers just may be too expensive.

All of these factors played into a highly controversial rezoning of the property in 2015. It allows the tower to come down and paved the way for a mixed-use development.

It permits a mix of office, residential and 380,000-square-feet of retail on the Eighth and Easton avenues site.

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Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

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Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

Don't Edit

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Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

Don't Edit

Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

Don't Edit

Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

Don't Edit

Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

Don't Edit

Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

Don't Edit

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Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

Don't Edit

Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

Don't Edit

Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

Don't Edit

Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

Don't Edit

Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

Don't Edit

Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

Don't Edit

Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

Don't Edit

Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

Don't Edit

Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

Don't Edit

Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

Don't Edit

Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

Don't Edit

Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

Don't Edit

Saed Hindash | For lehighvalleylive.com

Debris from demolished, ancillary buildings surrounds the long-shuttered Martin Tower Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in West Bethlehem.

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Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.