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Old junkyard to start new life
By LESTER R. DAILEY
Article published on Thursday, March 9, 2006
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![[Image]](/content_images/030906_cit-01.jpg) |
| Photo by LESTER R. DAILEY |
| Workers from Cross Environmental Services demolition contractors tear down a former industrial site on South Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, preparing the location for a face lift for which the city will ask developers for ideas for the 3.5 acre parcel. |
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CLEARWATER – Brownfields are dilapidated, polluted and abandoned or underused industrial sites that may contain hazardous contaminants.
And Clearwater is proud to be one.
“Clearwater is the first city in the state to be designated a brownfield ...,” Geri Campos, the city’s director of economic development and housing, said at a ceremony to start the rehabilitation of a former industrial site at 205 S. Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. last week.
“We’re very proud of that,” Campos said.
What’s good about being a brownfield is that it qualifies the area for state and federal grants and other economic assistance to clean up the pollution and prepare the land for better use. Over the past decade, Clearwater has received almost $1.4 million in federal grants, and $1.6 million in state and other funding, to clean up its brownfields.
“What better candidate for a brownfield than a property that was a dry cleaner, a foundry and a junkyard?,” Campos asked.
The so-called Clearwater Automotive parcel was acquired in an October 2003 land swap with the owners of Clearwater Mall that involved the building of a new fire station near the mall, and has been vacant since November 2005.
Since then, the city has conducted environmental studies, which found contamination from petroleum and metals, and is now ready to start demolition of the buildings and remediation of the pollution.
“What we’re doing in downtown Clearwater is changing the fabric of downtown,” Mayor Frank Hibbard told the invited guests. “It’s built out, so anything we build will be replacing something.”
“The city of Clearwater has a very great vision about brownfields redevelopment,” said Wanda Jennings, a federal Environmental Protection Agency brownfields loan fund manager who toured the city’s brownfields last year.
Demolition of the buildings is expected to take about a month. After that, further testing will be done to determine what pollution remediation is needed. The City Council has approved a $350,000 intergovernmental loan to the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency for remediation purposes.
When the state and federal governments are satisfied with the cleanup, the city will invite developers to submit their ideas for developing the 3.5 acre parcel.
“We’re very excited about the opportunities this land acquisition has generated,” Campos wrote in a prepared statement. “It’s not only that an unattractive junkyard is getting cleaned up and going away. We have an immediate need for affordable housing in downtown and that is one possibility we’re considering for the property. After the cleanup is completed, we’ll be asking the development community for proposals.”
“You’re making something out of nothing, or out of very little,” John Sego, a brownfields coordinator with the state Department of Environmental Protection, told Clearwater officials.
Miles Ballogg, Clearwater’s former brownfields coordinator, who is now a brownfields consultant with Tampa Bay Engineering and working with the city on the Clearwater Automotive project, agreed.
“We’ve been able to take abandoned properties like this and transform them into the right use for the community,” Ballogg said.
“There’s a power in brownfields. It’s the power to take something like this – I call them junkyard dogs because they’re mean, ugly and can bite – and transform them into affordable housing.”
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Article published on Thursday, March 9, 2006
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