Christina Jedra

The News Journal

Wilmington's Riverfront features restaurants, a boardwalk and a nature center, but 20 years ago it looked a lot like the weedy patch of land at 14th and Church streets today near the Brandywine River.

"Our 'before' (picture) over there didn't look any better than this one," said Mayor Mike Purzycki standing at the site. "It was pretty forlorn."

The Brandywine site's "after" picture is yet to be determined, but officials believe it could become an economic driver for northeast Wilmington. To further that goal, the Environmental Protection Agency announced the award of a $197,500 grant to Wilmington on Thursday. The money will be used to study cleanup and development options for the 14th Street site and another location at 12th Street and Governor Printz Boulevard.

"It's one of those hidden gems we have on this side of the city," Purzycki said. "This is a great example of what we can do to energize the economy on this side of town."

The two sites are brownfields, vacant or underutilized properties where development is hindered by possible environmental contamination. The Christina Riverfront had the same challenges, Purzycki said.

"It was a heavily contaminated area," he said. "It had every metal mankind has ever conceived of buried in that ground. Every step of the way was a big environmental challenge."

The larger 14th Street location used to be home to the Diamond State Salvage Company, which operated a scrap yard from 1949 to 1992, according to the EPA. A 1992 EPA notice stated that the site was "contaminated with lead, PCBs and other hazardous substances historically found in salvage materials." By 2002, over 200,000 tons of contaminated soil and debris were removed from the site as part of EPA emergency removal action, according to a 2009 BrightFields, Inc. report.

Despite years of work, "it still hasn't been developed," said Cecil Rodrigues, acting EPA regional administrator. "Hopefully this is the first step towards that."

With the help of a consultant and community input, the city will deliver a plan for the area within two years, as the grant requires, said city planner Matthew Harris.

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The grant could spur more investment in the area. Every dollar allocated to brownfields by the EPA leverages another $17 in public and private support, Rodrigues said.

"This funding can spark the kind of economic development that leads to a vibrant community," he said.

The key component of the EPA brownfields funding program is community input, Rodrigues said.

"We know that revitalization successes are best when the local communities are directly involved in the planning, assessment and cleanup," he said. "This ensures that the reuse of the site meets the neighborhood's needs."

Development along the Brandywine was part of the original mission of the Riverfront Development Corporation, for which Purzycki served as executive director for two decades. But that river was put on the backburner when developers saw a quicker path to redevelopment on the Christina.

"This is a really big deal," said Gov. John Carney. "(On the Christina River), we see today thousands of jobs, thousands of residents, revenue to the city coffers and to the state coffers that justifies a return on that investment year in and year out. It is so exciting that we're sitting on this river talking about the next phase. It's not going to be the same. But we can do something really important, really special on the Brandywine."

Wilmington was one of 19 communities nationwide to receive an area-wide planning grant this year, but the award is not the first of its kind for the area. The EPA has awarded nearly $11 million for assessment and cleanup costs for brownfields in communities throughout the state, the agency said. A $1 million grant was used to clean up five brownfield sites in Wilmington that enabled the creation of several entities -- a group home for people with disabilities, 40 residential units, a community center, and a research and manufacturing facility, the agency said.

The EPA has also supported the planned South Wilmington Wetlands Project, a $23.9 million project in the works for a decade that will provide urban green space and infrastructure for stormwater management in Southbridge.

​​Contact Christina Jedra at cjedra@delawareonline.com, (302) 324-2837 or on Twitter @ChristinaJedra.