Norwalk getting $200K in DECD money to clean up Webster Lot

Updated 4:31 p.m. with additional information, governor’s comments.

NORWALK, Conn. – Norwalk has been awarded a $200,000 Brownfields Assessment and Inventory Grant by the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD), according to a press release.

The funds will be used to conduct an environmental assessment of the Webster Lot, located at 55 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, to determine the extent and severity of environmental contamination that was found in previous studies and develop a remedial action plan, the release said. Activities will include environmental cleanup and reuse planning. The Norwalk Redevelopment Agency will develop the reuse plans with community input, in concert with environmental professionals and reuse experts, the release said.

“We applied for these funds in February and are very pleased to be chosen for this award,” Mayor Harry Rilling said in the release. “The planning activities are part of an overall initiative to renew public investment in SoNo, encourage residents and business owners to improve the appearance of their properties, and provide a better quality of life on South Norwalk.”

The Norwalk grant was announced along with 21 others through the state’s Municipal Brownfields Assessment and Inventory (MBAI) Grant Program, which helps cities, towns, and regional development agencies to assess and investigate the reuse of sites that in many cases have been underused or abandoned for decades.

“As Connecticut’s economy continues to grow, more and more of our legacy manufacturing and other brownfield sites are becoming ripe for redevelopment and reuse,” said Gov. Dannel Malloy in a separate press release. Malloy announced the grants at a news conference at a brownfield site in Norwich that was awarded funding as part of a revitalization project of the city’s Shipping Street corridor.

“With the grants we’re announcing today (Wednesday), 21 communities will be able to prepare key sites that are in many cases vacant and blighted for a return to productive uses that will grow jobs and improve quality of life across the state,” Malloy said. “These assessment grants will create a pipeline of larger remediation and redevelopment projects in the near future.”

MBAI was created as a complement to DECD’s larger brownfield grant and loan programs to assist local governments and their development agency partners to begin the process of redeveloping priority brownfield sites, according to the release. Prior to redevelopment of a brownfield or suspected contaminated site, environmental assessments are often required to provide more information to potential redevelopers about the site’s environmental conditions.

Under MBAI, applicants were eligible to receive grants of up to $200,000 to fund investigation and other pre-development activities to prepare sites for future development and reuse, the release stated.

For more information about the MBAI program or other state brownfield redevelopment programs, visit www.ctbrownfields.gov.