For the first time, Connecticut has a director focused on redeveloping all the state’s blighted brownfields back into productive use.
New York City transplant Tim Sullivan was recently named director of brownfields, waterfront, and transit-oriented development, a newly created position within the state Department of Economic & Community Development.
Sullivan says he sees plenty of opportunities for Connecticut to remediate old industrial sites into properties for commercial, residential, retail, or open space use. With the state’s latest remaking of its brownfields laws, Sullivan said achieving these redevelopments will be easier than ever.
“It is a complicated recipe to do a brownfield redevelopment project,” Sullivan said. “The trick is to find the sweet spot where with a little bit of help, you can get that private investment.”
Sullivan’s arrival has been in the works since 2006, when Connecticut launched its most recent brownfield initiative with the creation of the Office of Brownfield Remediation and Development, which was supposed to be a one-stop shop for developers to get advice and possible aid to remake polluted properties.
That easy navigation system, however, never took off, largely because the office lacked a director to advocate for the reforms and funding necessary for revitalization, said Gary O’Connor, co-chair of the state’s Brownfields Working Group.
“Brownfields are a huge issue for the state of Connecticut,” said O’Connor, who is an attorney at Hartford law firm Pullman & Comley. “It is our legacy from all of those years as one of the industrial powerhouses in the country.
“It is great to have an individual not only with Tim’s capability and experience, but also in a job geared toward these development issues,” O’Connor said.
Sullivan, who started Jan. 28, was the former chief of staff for New York City’s deputy mayor for economic development under the Michael Bloomberg administration, where he gained experience remaking blighted areas and getting the most out of waterfront property. Prior to joining New York City government in 2010, Sullivan worked at Barclays Capital as chief of staff to the head of global investment banking.
Sullivan’s role in Connecticut goes beyond just remediation. He’ll also be involved in waterfront and transit-oriented development, so he’ll need to coordinate various revitalization efforts throughout the state’s communities.
“As the transit infrastructure changes, you will see how the land use around it changes,” Sullivan said.
When looking at how new transit models can alter the development landscape, Sullivan pointed to the CTfastrak busway between Hartford and New Britain as an effort bringing renewed interest to a previously underused area. He also pointed to transit-oriented development efforts in Stamford and Bridgeport, tying to the Metro-North rail line.
A problem in Connecticut, experts say, is that oversight of brownfields and transit-oriented development has fallen into too many hands, including the Department of Transportation, DECD, the Department of Energy & Environmental Protection, and the Office of Policy & Management.
“If it is everybody’s responsibility, then it is nobody’s responsibility,” said Roger Reynolds, director of climate, transportation, and land protection programs for advocacy group Connecticut Fund for the Environment. “If it is No. 5 on everyone’s priority list, then it will never be at the top.”
Because of the bifurcated oversight, Sullivan has spent his first two months on the job gathering input from the various public stakeholders to attempt to develop goals for his position and the state’s brownfields and waterfronts.
If the state moves forward with one unified voice it will be easier to get other stakeholders on board, including banks, environmental groups, municipal governments, neighbors, current land owners, and future developers.
Because many of these partners have been reluctant to label properties as brownfields, the state doesn’t have an accurate count of how many exist. One estimate puts it at more than 500.
“It is a big number,” Sullivan said. “Every site is unique, and there is no one-plan-fits-all.”
Focusing everyone on the end result — redevelopment of a blighted area — will make the various projects and ultimately his role successful, Sullivan said.
“There is need for public action for what is a broken system,” Sullivan said. “The original polluter can be blamed, but that doesn’t help the site get cleaned up.”
The state legislature already made several changes to brownfield laws to make revitalization easier, including providing liability protection to the new developers and offering grants and loans when necessary to spur redevelopment.
For properties in strongly desired locations, the state doesn’t really need to get involved, Sullivan said, because developers will seize the opportunity regardless of whether a site is polluted.
For communities like Hartford with many brownfields, government often has to take the first leap in order to jumpstart the entire area, Sullivan said. That can include cleaning a property and then offering it for development; offering a developer significant incentives to take on a project; or the government revitalizing a property itself either into an active use or simple open space.
“Open space and public space and green space … can dramatically impact economic development,” Sullivan said. “I’m a big believer in open space.”
Despite its large number of brownfields, Sullivan said Connecticut has a lot of advantages working in its favor. They include: a large amount of natural open space; desirable locations along rivers and Long Island Sound; and existing transportation access with Metro-North, Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, and highways linking to major metropolitan areas.
“Connecticut has a tremendous amount of cards to play,” Sullivan said.
