Recycling in Roanoke

Reason
#8
Progressive Planning
Breaking
Construction at Carilion’s Riverside Center
for Research and Technology
old ground
By Christina Koomen
It’s the ultimate before-and-after story:
a languishing industrial site gets a new
lease on life as a shopping square or a
residential subdivision or an office complex
or an urban park. Such is the story of
brownfields redevelopment, one of the
most important recent trends in land use
management and city planning.
Brownfields are properties suspected of
harboring environmental contaminants
because of the kinds of operations
which took place on them. In addition to
industrial properties, they can also be old
gas stations, dry cleaners, or buildings
with lots of asbestos. The Environmental
Protection Agency made the definition of
a brownfield intentionally broad in order
to maximize the opportunities for people
to purchase these sites and turn them
around, taking advantage of the financial
and advisory assistance available through
brownfields programs.
There are brownfields corridors and
individual sites all over the City of Roanoke.
Perhaps the best known local example of a
reclaimed brownfield is the Riverside Center
for Research and Technology, where several
former industrial businesses are being
replaced by the Carilion Biomedical Institute
and other structures.
“The possibilities are wide open,” says
Roanoke Senior Planner Ian Shaw. “With
a little creativity, you can really do a lot
of things.”
Roanoke has become a leader in reusing
and converting brownfields sites. The
city has received six EPA grants totaling
approximately $2.1 million, covering all
four grant categories: assessment, cleanup,
revolving loan, and job training. In fact,
because of Roanoke’s success, the EPA
visited the city in August to conduct an
outreach and orientation session for other
Virginia localities.
Brownfields redevelopment is critical to a
city like Roanoke, where some 94 percent
of buildable land has been used, and
much of the remaining open land is in the
floodplain or on slopes. But redeveloping
brownfields goes beyond matters of
acreage. As Brian Brown, administrator of
the city’s Office of Economic Development,
says, “It’s the opportunity to take sites in
your community that are blighted, that are
hurting property values, that are hurting the
redevelopment of your neighborhood, and
bring them back to a vibrant use that will
benefit the community by providing jobs,
investment, and community pride.” n
10 ROAnOKe CitiZen Fall 2008 For city services or information, visit www.roanokeva.gov