Six Connecticut communities have received over $1 million in state grants to develop plans to clean up Brownfields sites.
The funds are being awarded through the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) Brownfield Area-Wide Revitalization (BAR) Grant program, a pilot program Gov. Dannel Malloy signed into law last summer. It encourages communities to consider areas such as neighborhoods, downtowns, waterfront districts, or other sections with multiple brownfields and develop strategies to revitalize the entire area.
“If we are to build more vibrant communities, if we are to make Connecticut the most competitive in the region for business, then we need to tackle Brownfields. That’s why we’ve invested an extraordinary amount in redeveloping otherwise unusable sites,” Malloy said in a statement.
DECD is awarding funding to the following municipalities:
East Hartford: $200,000 grant for comprehensive planning of the Silver Lane Corridor while identifying and studying the redevelopment potential of targeted brownfield sites.
Meriden: $100,000 grant to complete a retail, arts, and cultural plan for the transit-oriented development district, which includes 35 Brownfield sites.
New Britain: $200,000 grant for detailed site planning and redevelopment, environmental analyses, and identification of a master developer for potential transit-oriented sites around the East Main Street CTfastrak station.
Old Saybrook: $200,000 grant for an implementation plan to redevelop the easternmost corridor of Route 1 (Mariner’s Way) into a boulevard of reinvigorated marine and recreation uses.
Torrington: $200,000 grant to establish and implement a comprehensive Brownfield redevelopment strategy supported by focus-area market analyses and community outreach in the downtown area along the east and west branches of the Naugatuck River.
Waterbury: $140,000 grant to develop a strategy to improve and transform the Mad River Redevelopment Corridor in the city’s south end focusing on five brownfield parcels.
This pilot planning funding round was open to municipalities, economic development agencies and regional councils of government. The grants, up to $200,000, are awarded on a competitive basis and can be used for community visioning processes, market studies, mapping, inventory, infrastructure and streetscape planning and conceptual designs. One of the requirements of the BAR Program is the establishment of an advisory/steering committee consisting of a range of public and private stakeholders that will be present through not only the visioning and planning phase but also through implementation of recommended actions.
BAR project areas can either be already designated areas such as a neighborhood, district, corridor, downtown, or waterfront zone – all with multiple Brownfields – or an area newly defined by the applicant with multiple brownfield sites connected by blighted conditions, shared infrastructure, and other economic, social, or environment considerations.
To learn more about DECD’s Brownfield redevelopment programs visit www.ctbrownfields.gov.
