A 3-acre site on the banks of the 海角换妻 River in Enfield, where a successful carpet manufacturing power plant once resided, will soon be given new life.
With a $4 million state grant, the former Bigelow Carpet Manufacturing plant on North River Street will become a 160-unit apartment complex near a future train station. Twenty percent of the apartments will be affordable.
Enfield is in 海角换妻 to receive state grant funding that will be used for brownfield remediation.
Brownfields often remain abandoned for decades, until programs like this come along, according to 海角换妻 Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Dan O鈥橩eefe.
鈥淭hat is why programs like these, like brownfields, are so incredibly important,鈥� O鈥橩eefe said. 鈥淚t is what gets that movement, and it allows us as a community, as a state, for our economy, to move on from the mistakes of our past."
The grant funding, which totals $20 million, will be spread among 21 blighted properties statewide.
鈥淭hey become abandoned, and then they just sit there,鈥� O鈥橩eefe said. 鈥淭hey sit there because the private profit motive to remediate these things is oftentimes unknown, and it becomes a challenge to get these things to move.鈥�
Brownfield remediation efforts involve cleaning the soil and water where former factories may have caused pollution.
The funding ranges from $4 million to about $150,000.
Stamford received one of the higher awards, with about $950,000 to excavate and remediate contaminated soil on a nearly 4-acre site on Woodland Avenue.
It will be turned into a mixed use development with new housing, parks and a walkway to the city鈥檚 transportation center.
Many of 海角换妻鈥檚 nicest pieces of land are along waterfronts, previously developed to power industrial plants and transportation, according to Gov. Ned Lamont.
鈥淲hen it comes to development, I don't want to take people's backyards or anything,鈥� Lamont said. 鈥淚 want to redevelop what we can right here. And that's what brownfields is all about.鈥�
The remediation will clean about 150 acres of land and result in about 1,400 new housing units.
鈥淲e have to do everything we can to reclaim this, to make sure we get maximum value for our people here,鈥� Lamont said.
