14 COnnECTiCUT GREEn GUiDE • SprinG 2015 www.CTGreenGuide.com
Reusing Properties
Connecticut's brownfield program picks up in 2015
By Tim Sullivan
S
ince Dannel P. Malloy became governor, the re-
mediation and redevelopment of contaminated
and abandoned properties — better known as
brownfields — has become a centerpiece of the state's
economic development agenda.
Since fiscal year 2012, Connecti-
cut has invested more than $110
million in redeveloping brownfields
in every corner of the state, in big
cities and small towns. It's not just the
state who is investing — for every dollar
invested by the state in these projects, non-state
partners (primarily the private sector) have invested
$3.43. To put this in perspective, the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency's brownfield program is estimated
to have invested a total of just $190 million nationwide
since the program's inception in 1995. In 2014 alone, the
Connecticut Department of Economic & Community
Development awarded more than $35 million of fund-
ing to 55 new projects.
This year is already off to a fast start. In January, Malloy
announced that $2.2 million of grants had been awarded
to eight historically significant brownfield sites through-
out the state, allowing these structures to take crucial
steps toward preservation and redevelopment. This
spring, DECD will accept applications for a new round of
grants, as well as continuing to accept loan applications.
We expect to see continued progress at priority proj-
ect sites, such as the Contract Plating site in Stratford,
where remediation work funded by a $3 million state
grant has begun at a former metals manufacturing
facility, and at the Amerbelle Mill in Vernon, where a
$2 million state grant is helping bring hundreds of new
jobs that will revitalize downtown Rockville.
In New Britain, demolition will begin on the former
police station, opening up that site — located just across
