Brownfields Showcase Community Fact Sheet

Community Profile

Eastward Ho!, Florida

The Eastward Ho! Brownfields Partnership is a regional collaboration focusing on shared environmental restoration and urban revitalization efforts. The new Partnership will work to revitalize southeast Florida's historic urban core, thereby alleviating pressures on the imperiled Everglades.

Background

The Brownfields National Partnership has selected southeast Florida's Eastward Ho! Brownfields Partnership as a Brownfields Showcase Community. The Partnership comprises local, state, regional, and federal government agencies, as well as public, private, and non-profit community organizations in southeast Florida. The Eastward Ho! Initiative was established in 1995 to direct future growth to the region's urban core and away from the threatened Everglades ecosystem to the west. Because contaminated lands are a significant barrier to redevelopment in the Eastward Ho! corridor, the identification, assessment, cleanup, revitalization, and redevelopment of brownfields on a regional scale is essential to the Eastward Ho! strategy.

The Eastward Ho! corridor spans approximately 115 miles along the eastern portions of Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade Counties, with a combined population of more than 2 million. While the entire corridor is not characterized by poverty, it contains pockets of some of the most severe poverty in the country. The corridor, which developed along two railroad tracks, contains more than 2,100 known contaminated sites. Dade and Broward Counties have completed databases of known contaminated lands; Palm Beach County is developing similar information.

Current Activities and Achievements

More than $300 million in brownfields redevelopment, loan guarantees, infrastructure improvement, and economic revitalization has been invested in the Eastward Ho! corridor since 1993. The Florida legislature's Brownfields Redevelopment Act offers financial and other incentives, as well as liability relief for cleanup and redevelopment of properties designated as brownfields throughout the state. State brownfields grants awarded under this program total $1.12 million. More than $6 million from a variety of public and private sources has been dedicated specifically to the Eastward Ho! Partnership. Highlights of brownfields redevelopment in the region include:

• Receiving a developer's commitment to create economically viable businesses in the Wynwood neighborhood, the target area of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Brownfields Assessment Demonstration Pilot in Miami. Once redeveloped, 70-80 new jobs are expected for this low-income community;

• Investing of more than $10 million in the cleanup and redevelopment of the 30-acre Poinciana Industrial Center;

• Establishing a Brownfields Task Force to determine types of financial incentives and procedures needed to encourage private sector brownfields redevelopment; and

• Ensuring involvement of community members in brownfields redevelopment by Advisory Councils.

The Eastward Ho! corridor contains: EPA Brownfields Assessment Demonstration Pilots for the City of Miami and Dade County; one Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Enterprise Community and numerous Community Development Block Grant target areas; a Department of Commerce Economic Development District for southeast Florida and a Redevelopment Area for Palm Beach County; a national urban Regional Partnership Pilot; four state brownfields pilot projects; three state-designated Enterprise Zones; and one state-designated Sustainable Community. Partnerships for community involvement and brownfields assessment, cleanup, and redevelopment also exist with many federal agencies, private companies, and non-profit organizations.

Showcase Community Objectives and Planned Activities

The Eastward Ho! Partnership offers a model of how a regional coalition can accomplish environmental restoration and urban revitalization in a highly fragmented administrative structure. A three-pronged approach of collaboration, strategy, and action will allow the Partnership to address regional brownfields issues. During the next two years, the Eastward Ho! Partnership expects to complete a regional inventory of potential brownfields, integrated with socio-economic, health, and transportation data. Rehabilitation and redevelopment projects will feature sustainable reuse, including mixed-income housing, sound urban design principles, and bicycle, transit, and pedestrian friendly development. Establishing replicability, and taking advantage of existing financial tools (including the federal Brownfields Tax Incentive, a brownfields assessment revolving loan fund, and streamlined governmental processes for brownfields redevelopment) are priorities for the Partnership.

The Eastward Ho! Initiative will continue the partnerships it has already created with more than fifty community organizations, as well as foster new relationships. Because of the regional nature of the Eastward Ho! Initiative, there are also potential roles for many federal partners in the area's brownfields assessment, cleanup, and redevelopment.

For more information on the Brownfields Showcase Communities,
visit the EPA Brownfields web site at:
http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/showcase.htm