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Brownfields Success Stories
Sand Creek Pilot Leverages $1.3 Million to Redevelop Former Northside Treatment Plant Site
In Denver, Colorado, the site of a former wastewater treatment plant is now being redeveloped into a $7 million armory for the Colorado National Guard. In addition, 10 acres of this 52-acre site will eventually be home to a new recreational park, an industrial park creating hundreds of jobs, and a wildlife refuge. The National Guard had expressed interest in the former Northside Treatment Plant (NTP) site as early as 1994, but concerns over contamination on the property prevented any progress. Later that year, relief arrived in the form of a $175,000 EPA Brownfields Pilot grant, intended to help Denver return its idle former manufacturing and industrial properties to productive use. Eventually raised to $200,000, the Pilot grant helped bring public and private entities together to find solutions to not only the NTP property, but three other sites in the Denver area. The City eventually spent $20,000 for assessments of the NTP property, and funded a cleanup that was completed in the fall of 1997. In 1995, the Brownfields Pilot used $35,000 to secure the services of the Denver Planning Office, which evaluated and proposed a number of future uses for the property. These ideas were presented at community workshops to the nearby Globeville neighborhood, which supported a plan for the armory, industrial and recreational parks, and wildlife refuge. Total investment toward redeveloping the former NTP property has already reached an estimated $1.3 million. Even the discovery of an old, forgotten landfill during cleanup did not stall progress; the Denver City Council appropriated $800,000 to remove the landfill, and construction of the new armory began as scheduled. Work on the recreational park is also moving forward, and the new industrial park and its 400 anticipated jobs are a few years away. A road that will improve access to the industrial park is already under construction. "We are very, very pleased with the Pilot's progress," says Marc Alston, of the City of Denver's Mayor's Office. "The project has already received local and national attention for its accomplishments." For more information on the Sand Creek Corridor Brownfields Pilot, contact Tom Pike at (303) 820-5660, or Marc Alston at (303) 640-3528.