Six Connecticut towns and cities – East Hartford, Meriden, New Britain, Old Saybrook, Waterbury, and Torrington – are being awarded over $1 million in state grants to develop plans for remediating and developing clusters of brownfield sites.
The funds come from the Department of Economic and Community Development Brownfield Area-Wide Revitalization Grant program. It’s a pilot program signed into law in 2015 that encourages communities to consider areas such as neighborhoods, downtowns, waterfront districts, or other sections with multiple brownfields and develop strategies to assess, clean up, and reuse the parcels for business, housing, and public amenities that will generate jobs and revenues and revitalize the entire area.
DECD is awarding funding to the following municipalities:
- East Hartford – $200,000 grant for comprehensive planning of the Silver Lane Corridor while identifying and studying the redevelopment potential of targeted brownfield sites;
- Meriden – $100,000 grant to complete a retail, arts, and cultural plan for the Transit Oriented Development District, which includes 35 brownfield sites;
- New Britain – $200,000 grant for site planning and redevelopment, environmental analyses, and identification of a Master Developer for potential transit oriented development sites around the East Main Street CTfastrak station;
- Old Saybrook – $200,000 grant for an implementation plan to redevelop the easternmost corridor of Route 1 (Mariner’s Way) into a boulevard of reinvigorated marine and recreation uses;
- Torrington – $200,000 grant to establish and implement a comprehensive brownfield redevelopment strategy supported by focus-area market analyses and community outreach in the downtown area along the east and west branches of the Naugatuck River; and,
- Waterbury – $140,000 grant to develop a strategy to improve and transform the Mad River Redevelopment Corridor in the city’s south end focusing on five brownfield parcels.
