Minnesota Awards $5.5 Million In Grants

The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) has awarded more than $5.5 million to 12 Minnesota communities to clean up and redevelop contaminated sites. The grants were awarded through DEED’s Contamination Cleanup Grant Program.

Awarded twice each year, the grants account for about 75 percent of the statewide public funding for reclaiming polluted sites and brownfields. Cities, counties, the Metropolitan Council and other local units of government pool their resources to cover the remaining 25 percent.

This round of grants is expected to leverage more than $218 million in private redevelopment investment across the state.

Projects in the current grant cycle include several commercial and industrial sites, expansion of existing businesses and market-rate and affordable housing units. Funding for all of the projects combined will help clean 148.3 acres, create 1,732 new jobs and increase local property taxes by about $4.1 million.

Since its inception in 1995, DEED’s Contamination Cleanup Grant Program has awarded more than $84 million in cleanup and investigation grants statewide. Local authorities are using those funds to reclaim 1,939 acres of contaminated or polluted property for residential, commercial and industrial development.

The combined projects have resulted in 7,318 new housing units, including 1,610 that are classified as affordable housing. Projects funded by the program have created nearly 15,200 new jobs, retained more than 5,115 existing jobs, increased the tax base by more than $45.5 million and leveraged nearly $1.7 billion in private redevelopment investment. BFN