91视频

Maul Foster & Alongi President Jim Maul has seen what he describes as a paradigm shift in the forces driving brownfield cleanups in the Portland-metro region.

鈥淧eople began to realize if they were going to go in and cap a site, it could be a parking lot or a building,鈥� he said, 鈥渟o we started looking at the economics of the cleanup.鈥�

Maul, a co-founder of the Vancouver, Wash.-based environmental engineering and planning firm, said specialization in assessment of redevelopment potential of sites contaminated by past industrial use has paid off. As the economy rebounds and the demand for urban infill grows, firm staffers are seeing an increase in private efforts to clean up and develop brownfield sites.

鈥淲e were hearing from a lot of our clients that there was a real demand for land-use planning,鈥� Maul said. 鈥淲e realized we were a very competent brownfield company 鈥� We came at it both from the technical end and the policy side.鈥�

Maul Foster & Alongi’s experience with prominent cleanups like the Zidell Marine Corp. property in the South Waterfront District has led to recent work on brownfield inventories for Metro and the cities of Portland and Beaverton. The goal behind the inventories is to encourage public-private partnerships to clean up and breathe new life into the region’s brownfields, including old mills and former gas stations and auto shops, Maul said.

鈥淭oday, the majority of cleanups are driven by market forces,鈥� he said.

Brownfield inventory work involves investigating which contaminated sites have the greatest potential for redevelopment and most community interest. City officials can then reach out to property owners to find out what would be required for cleanup and redevelopment to take place.

鈥淭o me, it’s a little bit like a public works project,鈥� Maul said. 鈥淒evelopment is the remedy. What are the tools that allow that to occur?鈥�

The process involves a comprehensive look at each site: Professionals analyze the zoning, past and current land use, nearby transportation corridors and sensitive environmental areas like wetlands, said Ted Wall, Maul Foster & Alongi Oregon operations manager and principal engineer.

鈥淵ou go from hundreds and hundreds of parcels to a few,鈥� he said. 鈥淎s the number of sites gets to a manageable number, there will be outreach to those property owners to see what is possible 鈥� what the city can do.鈥�

One measure to encourage private development on brownfields involves changing the perception that environmental contamination poses a barrier, Wall said. State programs provide funding and low-interest loans to assist planning and cleanup so that sites are restored to productive use.

鈥淭he economics of the environmental component are manageable within the economics of the development,鈥� Wall said. 鈥淭he environmental components are nothing but another line item on the pro forma.鈥�

One project that benefited from state cleanup funding was Ava Roasteria, a downtown Beaverton coffee shop that formerly was a gas station. The project is one reason why Beaverton city officials are undertaking a brownfields inventory, Wall said.

鈥淚t’s a good example of a property going from dormant and really a blight to something successful,鈥� he said. 鈥�(Beaverton officials are) trying to replicate that.鈥�

Cheyenne Chapman, a legal policy analyst with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, said the stigma surrounding brownfields is starting to dissipate, especially in the wake of the recession. She coordinates the DEQ‘s Prospective Purchaser Agreement program in which the extent of contamination on a brownfield site is assessed and a cleanup plan is created during a change in ownership. Currently, about a dozen projects in Oregon are going through this process, she said.

鈥淲e’ve had a steady uptick in the number of inquiries that are coming in and a rise in applications,鈥� she said. 鈥淎s the economy picks up, it might be (that) reusing these sites in one form or another becomes more attractive.鈥�