s OA Brownfields 1995 Assessment Pilot Fact Sheet
r-t>
/ Richmond, VA
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
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 of
this disinvestment have 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.
Pilot Snapshot
Date of Announcement: 09/01/1994
Amount: $200,000
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
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 3 Brownfields Team
(215)814-3129
EPA Region 3 Brownfields Web site
(http ://www .epa.gov/reg3hwmd/bf-lr)
Grant Recipient: City of Richmond,VA
(804)780-5653
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
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
project through 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.
Activities
The Pilot has:
United States
Environmental
Protection Agency
Washington, DC 20450
Solid Waste
and Emergency
Response (5105T)
EPA 500-F-97-031
May 97

-------
•	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 pre-development assessments of
specific sites to:
o Isolate environmental mitigation alternatives and
costs; o Evaluate commercial and industrial market
reuse options and potential to inform planning for
environmental response; o Compare brownfields
projects to competing "greenfields" development
options in the local marketplace to determine the
feasibility of environmental response; o Determine
financial shortfalls and mitigate barriers toward
achieving brownfields redevelopment; and o 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 regulatory
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.
Leveraging Other Activities
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
United States
Environmental
Protection Agency
Washington, DC 20450
and Emergency
Response (5105T)
Solid Waste
EPA 500-F-97-031
May 97

-------
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. Sargeant 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.
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
Environmental
Protection Agency
Washington, DC 20450
and Emergency
Response (5105T)
Solid Waste
EPA 500-F-97-031
May 97

-------