United States
                       Environmental
                       Protection Agency
                       Washington, D.C. 20460
  Solid Waste
  and Emergency
  Response (5101)
EPA500-F-97-031
May 1997
                       National  Brownfields
                       Assessment  Pilot
                                                         Richmond,  VA
  Outreach and Special Projects Staff (5101)
                 Quick Reference Fact Sheet
EPA's Brownfields Economic Redevelopment Initiative is designed to empower States, communities,  and other
stakeholders in economic redevelopment to work together in a timely manner to prevent, assess, safely clean up, and
sustainably reuse brownfields. A brownfield is a site, or portion thereof, that has actual or perceived contamination and
an active potential for redevelopment or reuse. Between 1995 and 1996, EPA funded 76 National and Regional Brownfields
Assessment Pilots, at up to $200,000 each, to support creative two-year explorations and demonstrations of brownfields
solutions. EPAis funding morethan 27 Pilots in 1997. The Pilots are intended to provide EPA, States, Tribes, municipalities,
and communities with useful information and strategies as they continue to seek new methods to promote a unified
approach to site assessment, environmental cleanup, and redevelopment.
BACKGROUND

EPA selected the City of Richmond for a Brownfields
Pilot.  Richmond is considered the birthplace of
industrial development in the South. In recent times,
however, its older industrial areas and neighboring
residential communities have experienced private
disinvestment due to environmental risk, among other
factors. The results ofthis disinvestmenthave included
population loss, relatively high percentage of low-
moderate income persons, loss of business  and
industry, and vacant and underutilized commercial
and industrial properties.

In January 1993, approximately 5,800 acres of City
land in South  Richmond were  designated  by the
Commonwealth of Virginia as  a State Enterprise
Zone.  Several  other neighborhoods in the East and
North  sectors  of Richmond  also meet  the
Commonwealth's "distress criteria"  and include
sizable amounts  of  commercial  and industrial
properties.

OBJECTIVES

The City of  Richmond Office of Economic
Development (OED)  has focused on brownfields
economic redevelopment for several years and has
already generated business interest  in  using or
developing sites in targeted areas of the City.  The
  PILOT SNAPSHOT
   Richmond, Virginia
  Date of Award:
  September 1994

  Amount: $200,000

  Site Profile: The Pilot
  targets five sites located
  within the 5,800 acres of
  commercial and industrial
  properties that are
  throughout the State
  Enterprise Zones
  designated in the North
  and South sections of the
  City.
Contacts:

Edward Miller
Richmond Dept. of
Economic Development
(804) 780-5653
 Tom Stolle
 U.S. EPA-Region 3
 (215)566-3129
 stolle.tom@epamail.epa.gov
        Visit the EPA Brownfields Website at:
        http://www.epa.gov/brownfieids

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objective  of the Federal support of the City's
Brownfields Pilot project is to serve as a catalyst in
moving the process of reclaiming vacant business
sites forward. The City is initiating its Brownfields
Pilot projcctthrough the '"comprehensive community
and human development" concept espoused by the
Federal Empowerment Zone/Enterprise Community
program.  The City is seeking to integrate private
business investment and reuse of inner-city sites with
solutions to crime, housing, education, and health.

                     AND

The Pilot has:

* Identified five brownfields for further study under
 the Pilot;

* Reviewed  and  conducted  Phase  I  and II
 environmental site assessments at three sites;

• Entered into negotiations with business users at two
 sites; and

* Conducted prc-dcvclopmcnt assessments of specific
 sites to:

 - Isolate environmental mitigation alternatives and
   costs;
 - Evaluate commercial and industrial market reuse
   options  and potential to inform  planning for
   environmental response;
 - Compare brownfields projects to competing
   "greenfields"' development options in  the local
   marketplace  to  determine the feasibility of
   environmental response;
 - Determine financial shortfalls and mitigate barriers
   toward achieving brownfields redevelopment; and
 - Utilize existing and new financial incentives to
   stimulate brownfields assessment, cleanup, and
   redevelopment.

The Pilot is:

* Developing a   site-specific  property  recycling
 strategy in partnership with current/future site owners
 and users, government regulator}' agencies, and the
 City's development staff;
• Utilizing Richmond's Neighborhood Teams Process.
 a citizen  empowerment program, to  bring host
 residential communities into the reuse  decision
 making process; and

* Developing and implementing a local  program
 performance evaluation system.



Experience with the Richmond Pilot has been a
catalyst for related activities including the following.

* Collaborating with a pharmaceutical company to
 make available a 5-acre parcel that is presently
 occupied  by the City of Richmond's ambulance
 authority and emergency 911 services. Once this
 site is available, the pharmaceutical company will
 be able to expand and consolidate its research facility.
 Construction costs are estimated to be $50 million
 and will employ approximately 200 construction
 workers. At its completion the site will retain 100
 jobs and create  300 jobs over the next three years.
 The two displaced City service offices will probably
 be relocated at one of the other sites being addressed
 under the  Pilot.

* OED  has begun general discussions with EPA's
 Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization Office
 and the National Association of Minority Contractors
 to discuss opportunities for environmental training
 programs for minority businesses located within the
 City of Richmond.  The aim of these efforts is to
 facilitate the use of  local  minority  services to
 perform some of the Pilot work.

• OED  and J. Sargcant Reynolds Community College
 finalized  a curriculum  for the  community
 environmental training program for neighborhood
 residents of the South Enterprise Zone. The first
 workshop was held in May 1996.

* OED  was awarded an EPA Environmental Justice
 grant in October 1996.  This funding will expand the
 National Environmental Justice Training Foundation
 training program to include the North and East State
 Enterprise Zones.
 National Brownfields Assessment Pilot
 May 1997
                               Richmond, Virginia
                               EPA 500-F-97-031

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