Brownfield Development

Developers in Windsor, Connecticut are transforming a brownfield site into a $1 billion housing project, in the core of its corporate office center.

An environmental watchdog group reveals that funds from New York's Brownfield Cleanup Program are not going to clean up the lower-income communities they were intended to help.

According to this article in Area Development Online, developing a brownfield is a no-brainer: infrastructure is in place, governments have redevelopment funds to support it, and "the PR flip is huge."

A heavily contaminated site formerly used for chemical storage in East London provides an expensive lesson in urban brownfield remediation for government officials preparing the city for the upcoming 2012 Olympic Games.

By an 8-3 vote at 1:35 AM, July 14, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a plan to add 10,500 homes (32% affordable) on a 720-acre brownfield site known as Hunters Point, a former shipyard, including 320 acres of parkland and open space.

Here's one you don't find often - a neighborhood may sue the city of Sacramento for approving an infill project they categorize as 'too suburban and car-oriented', while the city council woman extolls the infill qualities, citing SB 375 and AB 32.

In Willmar, Minnesota, city officials were not pleased when a mandated environmental review concluded that the 68-year old airport building they wanted to demolish was historically significant.

A manufacturer of solar systems has planned to develop the country's largest urban solar power plant at a brownfield in Chicago.

Philadelphia's SugerHouse waterfront development could learn a thing or two from San Francisco's Mission Bay neighborhood, according to this piece.

Emeryville, CA is a success story of redevelopment. City leaders transformed a decaying industrial area into a booming retail landscape. But with the economic downturn, locals are questioning the wisdom of basing the city on retail.

Las Vegas' Union Park is a LEED-certified development that sits on a revitalized brownfield, but with no shortage of Vegas' glitz. Can smart growth be as marketable as it is environmentally good?

Officials in Los Angeles are hoping to turn a former brownfield site into the centerpiece of a new downtown green industrial district.

"Honey from the Hood" is one of the home-grown prodcuts from a Kensington neighborhood garden. To avoid soil contamination from this former industrial site, plants are grown in raised beds or hydroponically.