The City of Painesville's Brownfield Program has been in place since 2005. This program is designed to provide grants and technical assistance to property owners and tenants, giving them resources they need to prevent, assess, safely cleanup and sustainably reuse any brownfield, underutilized and/or vacant sites and buildings within the City of Painesville. This program is run through the City's Office of Economic Development.
The goals of the Brownfield Site Program are:
- Inventory potential sites that may have environmental concerns which could be returned to productive tax generating re-use
- Redevelop vacant or blighted properties that will create new revenues for public schools and public services and retain or create new jobs in our local economy
- Assist developers and businesses to determine the potential costs associated with redeveloping a particular site
- Re-use existing infrastructure instead of building new infrastructure, create more green space
- Protect residents and the environment
- Encourage more sustainable development
What's a Brownfield?
Ohio's definition of a Brownfield is "an abandoned, idle, or under-used industrial, commercial or institutional property where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by known or potential releases of hazardous substances or petroleum." Brownfield’s may include abandoned factories, warehouses, power plants and dry cleaners... to name a few. As with all industrial communities throughout Northeast Ohio, a history of environmental concerns are often found. It is our objective to work with these existing underutilized properties and turn them into tax-generating, job-creating valuable properties.
Cleaning up and redeveloping Brownfield’s can improve blighted neighborhoods, make use of communities' already existing infrastructure and create jobs. The Ohio EPA offers opportunities for local governments, community groups, developers and environmental professionals to learn more about the cleanup and reuse of Brownfield’s. Therefore, the City of Painesville is working in conjunction with the Ohio EPA and the USEPA on all processes involving Brownfield identification and remediation to ensure that the proper processes are taken and coordinated with environmental specialists.
Assessment Grants
Assessment grants provide funding for a grant recipient to inventory, characterize, assess and conduct planning and community involvement related to brownfields sites. The City of Painesville has $200,000 to assess a site contaminated by hazardous substances, pollutants or contaminants (including hazardous substances co-mingled with petroleum) and $200,000 to address a site contaminated by petroleum. Property owners/business owners in the City of Painesville can apply for these funds at this time. If you are interested in learning more about Brownfield sites in the City of Painesville, please reach out to Economic Development Office at 440-392-5795 or [email protected].
Current Brownfield Projects
Painesville Towers LLC 30 S Park Place $655,000 in clean up funds to remediate site of environmental issues before renovation of former bank building into new student dormitories begins
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Former Main Street Hotel Site 257 E Main Street $613,113 in clean up funds for the removal of lead-contaminated soil and installation of a groundwater use restriction before redevelopment of a mixed-use development begins
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Past Brownfield Projects
Old COE Manufacturing Site 590 Bank Street $1.2 million clean up and 50 new jobs
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Former Main Street Hotel Site 257 E Main Street $800,000 clean up and 6.5 acres of developable land
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Former Lake East Hospital Site 10 E Washington Street $4.5 million clean up and 8 acres of developable land
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