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TURNING STUMBLING BLOCKS INTO BUILDING BLOCKS

Release Date: 03/23/1998
Contact Information: Leo Kay, Press Office, (617) 918-4154

If Stamford officials have their way, the city's waterfront will take on a very different, and much improved, look five years from now. Where abandoned, contaminated properties once sat in "redevelopment limbo," a new sports complex, a high speed ferry terminal, acres of new housing and business space, and a "harborwalk" linear park will grace the shoreline.

Last week's designation of Stamford as a Brownfields Showcase Community comes as great news for the city, its residents and the rest of us who treasure the area. The original Brownfields Pilot Program launched three years ago allowed municipalities to receive federal assistance in addressing abandoned or under used industrial and commercial properties, where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived contamination. The showcase community designation takes the EPA's Brownfields program one step further by bringing more agencies and other federal resources into the mix.

We at EPA have teamed up with 15 other federal agencies - Housing and Urban Development, Department of Commerce and the Small Business Administration among them - to address the Brownfields issue using a holistic approach. Where our hands might have been tied in the past in trying to find local residents qualified to handle hazardous work remediation, we now have the Department of Labor on our side to provide job training funds and programs. Where we might have lacked the funding under a traditional Brownfields grant, we now will be able to tap into the Department of Justice's "weed and seed" program, which turns abandoned vacant lots into safe places for our children to play. The collective knowledge and resources of such a broad-based government coalition will undoubtedly translate into a richer, more inclusive Brownfields program.

Stamford officials have devised an ambitious, yet attainable goal of redeveloping the former Northeast Utilities Gas Plant, the Fuel Oil Depot Site and the Yale & Towne Site. The city's proposal is part of a comprehensive strategy to reclaim the harbor as a major economic and recreational resource, and as a result, revitalize Stamford's two lowest income neighborhoods. The Harbor Redevelopment Project will clean up these former industrial sites and replace them with housing and retail space, a marina, a high-speed ferry terminal, a high-tech manufacturing place and a sports complex to house a new hockey team. The "harborwalk" linear park will link the three sites and create a new recreational area along the city's waterfront. In the process, city officials project that the Brownfields redevelopment will create 600 construction jobs, 1,300 permanent jobs and $370 million of private investment. Heady aspirations, but certainly attainable thanks to the good work already undertaken by Mayor Dannel Malloy and Economic Development Director Kip Bergstrom.

The fact that Stamford was one of only 16 communities selected out of 238 stands as testimony to Malloy's and Bergstrom's unique proposal for addressing the city's derelict properties. Rather than using the traditional approach of singling out specific properties for redevelopment, they turned to the age-old real estate mantra of "location, location, location" in striving to - and succeeding in -- boosting local land values. Thanks to this aggressive business recruitment and retention effort, the city anticipates that none of the three Brownfields sites will require public investment in environmental cleanup. This novel approach has already paid big dividends: Witness the line-up of private developers who are ready to pay the costs of cost of cleanup, and ready to invest in the redevelopment of the sites.

It is also worth noting that Stamford had already gotten a good start redeveloping Brownfields well before federal dollars and commitments started coming in. The city just completed the cleanup of a 12-acre site with extensive petrochemical contamination that now houses a one-million square foot banking headquarters complete with 2,300 traders and other financial services professionals. This project - the fastest in state history - was managed by the same city redevelopment team that now stands ready to execute the Stamford Harbor Redevelopment Project.

Stamford could not have a more willing partner than EPA-New England. We have embraced and spearheaded the Brownfields movement since it was first announced by Administrator Browner just three years ago. Since then, towns and municipalities from Limestone Maine to Bridgeport, Conn. have received 21 Brownfields grants, valued at more than $3.5 million. In fact, New England has received more Brownfields grants than any other region the country. Aside from handing out money, we have also initiated a number of other measures to remove many of the regulatory and legal obstacles previously associated with redeveloping contaminated properties. We have removed 1,150 sites from the Superfund master list of hazardous waste sites in New England, clearing the way for redevelopment. We have developed and issued guidance that clarifies the liability of prospective purchasers, lenders, property owners and others regarding their association with activities at the site, and to limit such liability where appropriate. We will bring all of these tools and more to Stamford.

We are embarking on a bold new experiment to work with Stamford and the cadre of federal agencies in turning what once were stumbling blocks into building blocks. In the coming months the federal government will hold a forum in Stamford to outline the services to be provided to the city, who's providing them, and the time line on which the project will proceed. Between now and then, we will also select an individual who will work on Brownfields redevelopment in the city of Stamford. By this time next year, we should be well on our way to assessing, cleaning up and returning to productive use Stamford's three targeted properties, as well as the smaller sites surrounding them. The lessons learned from this endeavor will benefit cities across the country also battling the blight of abandoned properties.