NORTHAMPTON — Now the bustling home of Woodstar Cafe, Media Education Foundation and law offices, the vibrant commercial future of 60 Masonic St. was not always so certain.
After tests revealed hazardous materials at the former fire station in 1999, the potential high cost of cleanup could have served as a barrier to development. That year the city received a $50,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to pay for a study to assess the contamination of the building, allowing any future buyer to know some of the extra costs that would come with the historic building.
That grant is just one of the state and federal programs that aim to help clean up contaminated land known as brownfield sites. And as many marked Earth Day on Friday, the programs advanced with little notice, though they represent important methods by the government to spur development. There are several notable examples in the Valley, including the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield.
The state Department of Environmental Protection regulates the cleanup of contaminated sites. It requires that any incidents of spilled hazardous material, or levels of existing materials discovered after contamination, be reported.
“It could be as simple as your next-door neighbor’s oil tank overflowed when it was filled,” Paul Locke, assistant DEP commissioner for waste site cleanup said in a recent interview.
Property owners are liable to clean up hazardous materials on their land. But in some cases, such as with abandoned buildings, there is no responsible party to do the work. Or the properties may be owned by municipalities, but the potential cost of chemical mitigation dissuades any buyers.
That’s where brownfields programs come in. They refer to land previously used for industrial or commercial purposes that may be contaminated.
Technical assistance for redeveloping brownfields is made available by DEP, while grants and loans from the state and federal governments are also possible to help encourage the rehabilitation of contaminated property.
Locke said the programs take some of the uncertainty and liability out of choosing to redevelop an old building rather than breaking ground on new construction – known as a greenfield site.
“We and a lot of municipalities would like to direct development into existing buildings,” Locke said.
The largest uncertainty is often that the properties have not undergone the required testing to determine the extent of contamination, which often comes at a high cost.
And that uncertainty could have been a barrier to development of the old Masonic Street fire station in Northampton, said Wayne Feiden, city director of planning and sustainability.
After being put out of daily service in 1999, the structure was used for storage. City officials wanted any future buyer to know how much it would cost to clean up hazardous materials at the site after initial tests revealed positive results for contaminants.
The EPA-funded study showed that there was not any contamination at the site, though a 5,000 gallon oil tank was removed from the property. But Feiden said it was well worth it.
“The study was incredibly important because they had initially found high levels of heavy metals and volatile organic compounds,” he said Thursday. “It put the buyer at a comfort level – the project might have failed otherwise.”
After the building got the all-clear, Media Education Foundation bought the property for $277,000 in 2001.
The nonprofit paid $1.16 million to renovate the two buildings on the property. It sold the smaller maintenance building, which is now being used for residences, according to EPA data.
The completion of two other brownfields projects in Northampton has helped allow two other current projects to start – the expansion of Pulaski Park and the installation of a roundabout at the intersection of Pleasant and Conz streets.
The city in 2000 received a $75,000 EPA grant to gauge the extent of contamination in the Roundhouse parking lot.
The area was used to store coal for producing gas in a plant once located in the downtown parking lot. The plant was later converted to manufacture liquefied petroleum gas in 1951. The last owner of the plant, Bay State Gas Co., donated the land to the city in 1974.
The testing revealed no immediate health or environmental risks from residues found near the surface of the parking lot or from oil or tar present over 8 feet underground, because the parking lot is paved over and a layer of clay prevented the chemicals from migrating deeper underground.
Bay State Gas Co. paid $6.4 million to clean up the site in 2008 as plans to construct a hotel were underway.
That plan fell through after legal and other hurdles, making way for the redevelopment of Pulaski Park. The current phase will see the renovation of the park’s current footprint and the second phase will connect it to the Roundhouse lot below.
The EPA provided the city with a $200,000 grant in 2006 to clean up petroleum contamination near the intersection of Conz and Pleasant streets.
The contamination stemmed from the former Staab’s Service Station, now the Pleasant Journey car dealership. The cleanup paves the way for the reconfiguration of the Conz and Pleasant streets intersection into a roundabout. The intersection has one of the highest concentrations of accidents in the city, Feiden said.
The state Department of Transportation-funded project is being handled by Gomes Construction. Feiden said construction is set to start soon, as Gomes is now purchasing materials and getting required permits.
Chris Lindahl can be reached at clindahl@gazettenet.com.