2018 Brownfields Redevelopment Fund Awards Announced
On June 12, the Baker-Polito Administration announced $1.7 million in Brownfields Redevelopment Fund grants to support the environmental assessment and cleanup of contaminated and challenging sites across the state. The sites are then put to new uses, which can include the development of affordable housing.
Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito announced the awards at the Duck Mill affordable housing development by Lawrence Community Works, a former recipient of Brownfields funds.
2018 Brownfields Redevelopment Fund Awards:
27 Katrina Road Project, Chelmsford, $1,351,000
Chelmsford will use the funds to address contamination of groundwater beneath the site. Katrina Road LLC, an affiliated company of NRT, Bus, and Trombly Motor Coach Service Inc., intends to build a 10,000-square-foot building to use as a school bus maintenance terminal, office, and training facility. The site will also house on-site storage for approximately 60 school buses. Upon completion of the project, the facility will have 10 full-time employees, seven of which will be newly created jobs, and 30 part-time employees, all of which will be newly created jobs, on site. The Chelmsford location is expected to grow to 40 full-time and 60 part-time employees in five years.
NewVue Affordable Housing Corporation Project, Gardner, $134,230
NewVue Affordable Housing Corporation, a community development corporation, is using brownfields recoverable grant funds for soil gas and indoor air remediation at a two-story downtown block building at 246-248 Central Street in Gardner. Once the property is safe for occupancy, NewVue plans to open a career and homeownership center on the bottom floor of the building, and will create three units of affordable housing on the upper floors. NewVue also received a grant through the Brownfields Redevelopment Fund in FY17.
CommunityWorks’ Marriner Building Project, Lawrence, $88,770
Lawrence CommunityWorks will use this site assessment grant as part of its due diligence for a potential purchase of the Marriner Building, a 476,000-square-foot building that is part of the Polartec Inc. manufacturing complex. Lawrence CommunityWorks is contemplating a mixed-use redevelopment that would include 180 affordable rental units alongside retail and commercial uses in Lawrence’s Arlington District neighborhood.
VietAID 195 Bowdoin Street Project, Dorchester, $33,500
VietAID, a community development corporation, will create 41 new affordable housing units on a currently vacant lot that once housed an auto repair facility in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. The site has been a vacant parcel since early 2000s and in 2003, the parcel was identified as having recognized environmental conditions (RECs). These were specific to the storage and use of various petroleum products at the former automotive business facility that operated at the site. Cooperstown Environmental, of Andover, has been hired to conduct the site assessment activity on the parcel.
Bay and Tapley Project, Springfield, $99,940
This grant will finance an environmental site assessment on four city-owned properties with a total land area of approximately 14 acres. The highly visible parcels are zoned industrial with easy highway access, making them ideal for an industrial or manufacturing reuse. The current scope of work would evaluate the four parcels together and reconcile multiple release tracking numbers, which are the numbers that the Department of Environmental Protection assigns to sites with a release of oil or hazardous materials.