w5 PR Brownfields 2002 Revolving Loan Fund Pilot Fact Sheet City of Worcester, MA EPA Brownfields Initiative EPA's Brownfields Program empowers states, communities, and other stakeholders to work together to prevent, assess, safely clean up, and sustainably reuse brownfields. A brownfield site is real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. On January 11, 2002, President George W. Bush signed into law the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act. Under the Brownfields Law, EPA provides financial assistance to eligible applicants through four competitive grant programs: assessment grants, revolving loan fund grants, cleanup grants, and job training grants. Additionally, funding support is provided to state and tribal response programs through a separate mechanism. Background The City ofWorcester (population 173,000) is located in central Massachusetts. Like many other cities in the Northeast, Worcester lost much of its industrial base over several decades. Urban blight, disinvestment, and an overall pattern of decline have created pockets of severe distress within certain neighborhoods, particularly the city's older inner-city neighborhoods. The per capita income of city residents is only 78% of the state-wide average. The city-wide poverty rate is 15%, but poverty rates are as high as 42% in some neighborhoods. The city has been designated an Economic Target Area by the state, which enables access to the state's Economic Development Incentive Program. Former industrial sites have been idle for decades because of potential liability issues. Over 200 sites are classified by the state as contaminated. While the city is 37 square miles in area, only 100 acres of privately owned land currently is on the market and available for development. To improve the city's ability to compete for new development projects, the city has developed an overall economic development strategy that focuses on the reuse of older, underused or abandoned industrial sites with environmental issues. A major impediment to reuse of brownfields has been the reluctance of traditional lenders to provide funding for the reuse of Pilot Snapshot Date of Announcement: 05/01/2002 Amount: $1,000,000 Profile: South Worcester Industrial Park Contacts For further information, including specific grant contacts, additional grant information, brownfields news and events, and publications and links, visit the EPA Brownfields Web site (http ://www .epa.gov/brownfields). EPA Region 1 Brownfields Team (617)918-1424 EPA Region 1 Brownfields Web site (http://www.epa.gov/regionl/brownfields) Grant Recipient: City of Worcester,MA (508) 799-1523 Objectives Worcester's goals for the BCRLF Pilot are to provide an additional source of funds that will be leveraged with both private financing and public funds and incentives to address redevelopment issues associated with significant brownfields in the city. This Pilot focuses on a 25-acre, inner-city, former industrial site known as the South Worcester Industrial Park (SWIP). Buildings on the property are either vacant or underused. An assessment of city-owned portions of the property has been conducted through the Brownfields Assessment Pilot. A series of public meetings have been held with residents, businesses, and other stakeholders to create a redevelopment plan for the SWIP property. The redevelopment plan involves a potential build-out of 1.7 million square feet of industrial, manufacturing, and warehouse space. Activities Fund Structure and Operations The City ofWorcester is the cooperative agreement United States Environmental Protection Agency Washington, DC 20450 Solid Waste and Emergency Response (5105T) EPA 500-F-02-012 May 02 ------- contaminated sites, even those located in prime redevelopment areas. The city believes that the BCRLF Pilot can leverage funding to move high-priority projects forward. recipient and will serve as the lead agency. The Worcester Executive Office of Economic Development will serve as fund manager. A site manager will be provided by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. The BCRLF Pilot funds will be incorporated into other city lending and incentive programs to leverage the maximum amount of funding to complete brownfields cleanups. The city will leverage both public and private sources of funding, including HUD Section 108 Loan Guarantee and Community Development Block Grant funds. Additional HUD funding may be available through the Brownfields Economic Development Initiative program. The BCRLF and HUD funds will be used in tandem with additional low-interest funds, tax increment financing, and other public incentive programs to provide the financing and incentive package needed to leverage private developer investments. The information presented in this fact sheet comes from the grant proposal; EPA cannot attest to the accuracy of this information. The cooperative agreement for the grant has not yet been negotiated. Therefore, activities described in this fact sheet are subject to change. United States c Environmental anri Fmpflpn™ EPA 500-F-02-012 j. j.- a ancl Emergency .. __ Protection Agency Response (5105T) MaV02 Washington, DC 20450 ^ v ' ------- |