Scott Wolf, executive director of Grow Smart Rhode Island, sees the state’s brownfields as “fields of dreams.”
“The images associated with these properties are danger, ugliness and stagnation,” said Wolf at the opening of a Brownfields conference last week. “But there is another side to this.”
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Sponsored by Grow Smart and Main Street Rhode Island, the conference “Revitalizing Brownfields How Can Rhode Island Do More?” was held last Wednesday, Feb. 7 at the Radisson Airport Hotel.
According to Wolf, the remains of Rhode Island’s industrial legacy remain a part of the state’s landscape in the form of brownfields. Though the true magnitude of this problem has never been calculated, Wolf said it is estimated that the state has close to 300 brownfields.
Under federal definition, the term brownfield applies to any “abandoned, idled, or underused industrial and commercial facilities where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination.”
A Grow Smart report, released at the conference, said if left unaddressed the state’s brownfields “drain surrounding areas of their vitality, exacerbating neighborhood blight and economic stagnation.” In addition, the study noted, “environmental contamination poses health threats, and abandoned buildings encourage vandalism and illegal dumping.”
Wolf said most of these properties, which do not contribute to the tax base, are a fiscal drain on both the state and local municipalities.
According to the Grow Smart study, the 56 brownfields that have been redeveloped in the state so far have brought more than $2.25 million in tax revenues and over 1,000 new jobs.
“Converting these areas is really a win-win situation,” he said. “They promote smart growth and economic development and also reduce the negative impact of sprawl.”
Still, Wolf said the program has been stunted in the past few years, “lacking focus,” and as a result Grow Smart, in conjunction with Main Street Rhode Island has drafted a new set of policy recommendations it plans to present to the state’s General Assembly.
Broken into seven major categories the policy recommendations include providing more leadership and coordination, strengthening state agency staffing, establishing a link between the state and local municipalities, addressing liability concerns, providing state funded financing and incentives, revising the arsenic issue, and supporting federal legislation.
“Although we still do not know all of the specifics of the brownfields problem in Rhode Island, these recommendations address the problems of which we are aware: issues and concerns brought up by the stakeholders who we have interviewed, as well as problems raised in our investigations and research,” it said in the policy recommendation preface.
Wolf suggested looking at other states as examples. J. Christian Bollwage, mayor of Elizabeth, New Jersey and co-chair of the United States Conference of Mayor’s Brownfields Taskforce, addressed the group about the importance of brownfields redevelopment – a concept that has had a huge economic impact on his once primarily industrialized city.
“The goals and the challenges of Grow Smart Rhode Island are the same challenges we face in New Jersey,” he said. “As the most densely populated state in the country, we must find ways to revitalize our cities, preserve our open spaces, improve our quality of life or our economy will stagnate.”
Bollwage said brownfields are an issue many cities and states around the country are facing. A study conducted by the Conference of Mayors’ Brownfield Taskforce found that of the 230 cities responding, 210 of them estimated they had more than 21,000 brownfields, which covered more than 81,000 acres of land. In addition, he said three-fourths of survey respondents estimated that if their brownfields were redeveloped, they would realize between $902 million and $2.4 billion in annual tax revenues as well as create more than 587,000 jobs.
“Our studies tell us we have plenty of opportunities,” he said, “In every neighborhood, in every community, in every region — to take abandoned sites and recycle them to more productive use. We know that brownfields are not an endangered species. The question is, of course how do we tackle them. How do we garner the necessary financial, political and community support to turn these eyesores into stores, ballfields, and more?”
In Elizabeth, Bollwage said that goal has been accomplished by combining the efforts of the state and local governments, with developers, and most of all residents. One of the cities greatest success stories, he said is the Jersey Gardens Mall, which opened only a year ago on what was formerly a municipal landfill. The mall, which has more than 1.7 million square feet of space and is home to 200 stores, is visited by more than 150,000 shoppers weekly, and has created more than 4,000 permanent jobs, Bollwage said, in addition to sparking surrounding development.
“In its first eight months of operation, it has generated $2.5 million in revenue for the City of Elizabeth,” he said.
Bollwage admits, the mall’s construction didn’t come without initial investments — including financing to help the developer remediate the contamination, and close to $118 million for infrastructure improvements.
Bollwage said the state legislature was key in the success of the program in passing the Landfill Reclamation Act, which allows for certain municipalities to designate “landfill reclamation districts.” Bollwage said the legislature also allowed the city to assess a 3 percent franchise fee on all taxable items sold within the district. And though the state currently has a six percent sales tax, in certain business districts like this one, Bollwage said that has been reduced to 3 percent — so that additional tax isn’t really felt in the wallets of shoppers.
“I believe that one of the reasons we had so many brownfield successes in Elizabeth is because we have taken a fresh look at these sites,” he said. “I decided to approach them as opportunities not obstacles. It might seem impossible to imagine them as a store, a ballfield, a community center — but you must.”
Wolf is hoping that Bollwage’s success will inspire Rhode Island community and business leaders to do more with Rhode Island’s brownfields.
“We need to leave this day with a high degree of momentum and focus,” he said. “We want to help people pass over greenfields and develop brownfields.”
