Bisnow & Roux: How Financial Incentives Help Bring Brownfields Back To Life
How Financial Incentives Help Bring Brownfields Back To Life
Roux’s Frank Cherena was interviewed for an article in collaboration with Bisnow, the world’s leading B2B platform serving the commercial real estate industry. Frank is a Vice President and the National Director of Real Estate Services at Roux, with over twenty years in environmental assessment, remediation, and brownfield redevelopment support.
An estimated 450,000 brownfield sites are abandoned across the US due to environmental contamination. Transforming these sites is an essential part of improving local communities and can provide much-needed affordable and sustainable housing, Frank shared.
Tax incentives and credits are instrumental in renovating many US brownfields sites into economically feasible development projects. “Redeveloping brownfield sites is crucial because it revitalizes neglected or contaminated sites, especially in markets where affordable land is scarce,” said Frank.
While Roux takes part in brownfields work all over the country, the market is particularly successful in large cities like New York. Within the boroughs lie some of Roux’s most recent and impressive brownfields projects, including The Peninsula, a vibrant, mixed-use campus for startups and growing manufacturing businesses, formerly home to the Spofford Juvenile Detention Facility. Development of this project was made possible through enrollment in the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s (NYSDEC) Brownfield Cleanup Program (BCP). Through the program, Roux aided in removing historic fill and leaking underground storage tanks. The Peninsula now brings more publicly accessible open space to the South Bronx, winning the 2021 Big Apple Brownfield Award for Community Open Space.
“We were able to step in the project and provide site investigation, air monitoring, and asbestos abatement support to help start the redevelopment of this brownfield space cost-effectively,” Frank recounted. “With additional support from NYSDEC BCP, we were able to turn this into a live, work, and play environment for the local community.”
The Peninsula’s mixed-use community will feature a fresh-food grocery store, a health and wellness center, and 740 units of affordable housing, ultimately creating new, permanent jobs for local residents.
Another Roux project made possible by BCP enrollment is the Former Brooklyn Rapid Transit Powerhouse on behalf of Powerhouse Arts, a nonprofit organization with the goal of creating a facility for local artists on the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. Roux took over the remediation of the Site in 2015 and helped it receive a certification of completion before a BCP-mandated deadline in December 2017.
Roux helped Powerhouse Arts to navigate the BCP and contributed to restoring the Site’s turbine hall and boiler house. The redevelopment featured an exhibition space and facilities for fabrication in wood, metal, ceramics, textiles, and printmaking. Powerhouse opened in 2023, hosting local artists, classes, workshops, and community events.
Brownfield sites present an excellent opportunity for savvy investors to turn vacant, blighted infill properties into something valuable for the community and the environment. There is significant value in taking advantage of incentivized cleanup programs to limit liability and help offset site operation costs. Looking to the future, Frank shared, “we will be interested in hearing developers’ and builders’ challenges and concerns so that we can continue to develop solutions that remove pain points and unlock the potential of these properties.”
If you’re interested in learning more about Roux’s work in Brownfields/Due Diligence and how to leverage tax incentives and credits for these sites, please reach out to us. To unlock our full article in collaboration with Bisnow, please click below.
