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Cleanup Complete at Spokane Site More than 200,000 tons of contaminated soil is gone and a piece of prime real estate overlooking downtown Spokane and the Spokane River is ready for development. Over the last year, developers River Front Properties, LLC of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, cleaned up the old Kendall Yards (formerly known as the Summit Property) with the help of a $2.4 million brownfield loan from the Washington State Department of Community Trade and Economic Development (CTED). The loan is the largest of its kind for a brownfield project in the United States to date. Ecology, which oversees cleanup operations, has just mailed a letter that states no further action is needed on the property. The site will be removed this summer from the state’s list of sites that require cleanup. The site spans 78 acres on the north side of the Spokane River, connecting with downtown at the Monroe Street Bridge. At a depth of 30 feet, the petroleum contamination could have been left in place with fencing and deed restrictions. However, the developer chose to remove as much of it as possible to allow for unrestricted use of the land. Plans for the development include up to 1,000 residential units and 1.5 million square feet of commercial space. The project is estimated to create 500 jobs during construction and up to 2,500 permanent jobs in the commercial space. The long-term economic benefit is expected to be over $2 billion. The project team of state and local agencies and the private developer was able to move through planning and actual cleanup in one year, a process that normally takes much longer. The Kendall Yards project is the second brownfield loan issued in Washington state through CTED’s brownfields revolving loan fund. The state’s brownfield revolving loan program was created with a U.S. EPA grant. BFN |
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