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Brownfields Success Stories
Old Pottery Factory Site Gives Way to New Development in Trenton
A vacant, dilapidated property that for years served as an illegal dumping ground in inner city Trenton, New Jersey is at last being returned to productive use. To help spark redevelopment efforts at the former Crane Pottery Factory site and other unused industrial sites within the City, EPA awarded Trenton a $200,000 Brownfields Pilot grant under the Agency's Brownfields Initiative in September, 1995. The Pilot, along with Isles, Inc., a local non-profit community development corporation, has held community-wide meetings, conducted monthly meetings with resident-representatives, produced a quarterly newsletter entitled Trenton On-Site News, posted flyers notifying residents of meetings, and developed fact sheets that keep residents informed of redevelopment activities. Illegal dumping activity at the Crane site has been nearly eliminated thanks to these and other community awareness efforts. To assess the site, the Trenton Pilot leveraged a $30,601 grant from the State's Hazardous Discharge Site Remediation Fund program. Once areas of contamination were defined, a local developer stepped in and purchased a 1.5-acre parcel of the site, which was found to have no contamination, from the City for $12,000. Soon afterward, the developer began construction of a 10,800 square-foot, $300,000 candle-making facility on the property. Fifteen employees have since been relocated to the new facility. The developer began construction of a second building in fall 1997, on another portion of the Crane site; the 9,800 square-foot facility that now occupies the space is home to a fish wholesaling company that brought several new jobs to the area. The city has since subdivided the Crane site to create three additional lots, two of which were purchased by the same development company. One of the lots will be home to a new manufacturing facility, and the other will be the site of a building that the company expects to occupy shortly after construction. To learn more about the Trenton Brownfields Pilot, contact Larry D'Andrea at (212) 637-4314.