EPA
%
%
United States
Environmental
Protection Agency
Washington, D.C, 20460
Solid Waste
and Emergency
Response (5101)
EPA 500-F-99-xxx
September 1999
The Right Prescription:
Pharmaceutical Company
Brings Relief to Richmond
Outreach and Special Projects Staff (5101)
Brownfields Success Stories
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. EPA is funding: assessment
demonstration pilot programs (each funded up to $200,000 over two years), to assess brownfields sites and to test cleanup and redevelopment
models; job training pilot programs (each funded up to $200,000 over two years), to provide training for residents of communities affected by
brownfields to facilitate cleanup of brownfields sites and prepare trainees for future employment in the environmental field; and, cleanup revolving
loan fund programs (each funded up to $500,000 over five years) to capitalize loan funds to make loans for the environmental cleanup of
brownfields.These pilot programs 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.
Hundreds of new jobs and millions of dollars in
investment have been brought to northern
Richmond, Virginia, the result of a collaboration
among the city, Whitehall-Robins Healthcare, and
a Brownfields Pilot project funded by EPA. The
city provided a 4.5-acre parcel of municipally-
owned land to Whitehall-Robins, Richmond's 25 th-
largest private
employer, so that the
company could retain,
consolidate, and expand
its pharmaceutical
research facility.
The land that now
contains Whitehall-
Robins' expansion was
formerly the site of an
armory, a use that left
the soil contaminated
with lead and mercury.
Though Whitehall-
Robins had been
interested in the property for years, the site sat
idle until EPA's $200,000 Brownfields Pilot grant
provided the city with environmental consultants
to advise on detailed assessment and cleanup
techniques. The city used the consultants' findings
to make an arrangement with Whitehall-Robins in
which the company would spend nearly $2 million on
cleanup in exchange for the former armory site.
Maker of such well-known medicines as Advil,
Robitussin, and Dimetapp, Whitehall-Robins fully
cleaned the site, then
moved forward with its
plan to build 100,000
square feet of new
laboratory and office
space on the property.
The company also
renovated 154,000 square
feet of its current facility.
Completed in October
1998, Whitehall-Robins'
new research center
includes office,
laboratory, and light
industrial areas for 350
employees.
Approximately 250 of these positions are new jobs,
and the remaining 100 are positions that would
otherwise have been moved to company facilities in
New Jersey. Nearly 250 temporary jobs were
The Whitehall-Robins site

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Though Whitehall-Robins had been
interested in the former armory site
for years, the land sat idle until EPA's
$200,000 Brownfields Pilot provided
the city with environmental
consultants to advise on
assessment and cleanup
techniques. In a subsequent
arrangement, Whitehall-Robins
agreed to spend nearly $2 million on
cleanup in exchange for the site.
created during the site's cleanup, construction and
redevelopment, which cost the company a total of
$75 million.
Whitehall-Robins' new facility now generates an
average of $100,000 per year in tax revenue.
Former Virginia Governor George Allen declared
this project as evidence that Virginia is becoming
"home to the world's top high-technology and
biotechnology companies." For more information
on the Richmond Brownfields Pilot, contact Lynn
Lancaster at (804) 780-5633 or Tom Stolle at (215)
814-3129.
	JUSTTHE FACTS	
•	The land that now contains Whitehall-Robins'
expansion was formerly the site of an armory, a use
that left the soil contaminated with lead and mercury.
•	After cleaning the site, Whitehall-Robins moved
forward with its plan to build 100,000 square feet of
new laboratory and office space.
•	Nearly 250 temporary jobs were created during the
site's cleanup, construction and redevelopment,
which cost the company a total of $75 million.
Contacts:
Richmond Dept. of
Economic Development
(804) 780-5633
U.S. EPA-Region3
(215) 814-3129
Visitthe EPA Brownfields Website at:
http://www.epa.gov/brownfields
Brownfields Success Story
September 1999
Richmond, VA
EPA 500-F-99-XXX

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