The Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) is again accepting applications for a second round of grant funding for the Brownfield Area-Wide Revitalization (BAR) program.
Established in 2015 by a unanimous, bipartisan vote of the General Assembly and signed into law by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, the BAR planning grant program encourages communities to consider for redevelopment areas of municipalities such as neighborhoods, downtowns, waterfront districts or other sections that contain multiple parcels of brownfields. Under the terms of the program, up to $1 million is being made available to eligible entities to help develop strategies that will assess, clean up and reuse the blighted parcels for business, housing and public amenities with the goal of revitalizing the entire area.
“Connecticut continues to be a national leader in brownfield remediation, having cleaned up hundreds of sites and put them back to use for people to live, work and raise their families,” Malloy said in a statement. “These strategic investments have brought new life to our communities and resulted in the creation of more than 3,000 permanent jobs and over 15,000 construction jobs in the state.”
“Our state’s comprehensive approach to the remediation and revitalization of brownfields has shown to have a substantial impact on communities across the state,” DECD Commissioner Catherine Smith said in a statement. “For every dollar the state has invested in brownfield redevelopment, non-state partners have invested or will invest $11.41. The state has since 2012 invested more than $225 million in brownfield redevelopment, spurring economic growth and allowing dilapidated land to be put back into use.”
The first round of funding under the BAR program was awarded in January 2016 to redevelopment projects within six municipalities, including East Hartford, Meriden, New Britain, Old Saybrook, Torrington and Waterbury. The projects are being used for multiple purposes, such as the development of retail, arts and cultural plans around transit-oriented development districts, and the renovation of multiple parcels of properties within a downtown neighborhood.
