By Ignacio Dayrit, Director of Programs

May 8, 2018

The Oregon Brownfields Conference & Awards Luncheon held on April 29-May 1, 2018 was a combined family reunion and homecoming. Few conferences match the camaraderie shared by those who attend this gathering.

BL’s solar energy development event will take place on the campus of the New Jersey Institute of Technology in downtown Newark, New Jersey for one robust and exciting day of solar development programming. Two tracks of educational programming in the morning, an engaging group lunch and an afternoon full of networking with on-site technical assistance will make for an illuminating and constructive day.

By Ignacio Dayrit, Director of Programs

May 17, 2018

On March 31st, the 23rd Street neighborhood in Richmond came together at Richmond Union High School to reimagine the possibilities for the 23rd Street corridor, also known as Calle 23. Just a short walk from the Richmond BART and Amtrak Stations, Richmond Civic Center and the Richmond Greenway, Calle 23 is ripe with redevelopment opportunities.  

On March 11, CCLR hosted our second Bike Tour of Bay Area Brownfields. For this tour we focused our attention towards the island of Alameda. Program Assistant Sam Hare Steig led a herd of 24 cyclists to three unique redevelopment sites. The group toured each site and talked with the local developers behind the projects.

Raise awareness of your property for redevelopment while you perfect your pitch to developers and real estate brokers.

Not only are the folks at New Belgium Brewing Company the gifted brewers and creators of the delicious “Fat Tire” Ale, but they are also quite the environmentalists. When the Brewing Company began searching for a location for a second brewery in 2009, the Company established a set of criteria for their site, one of which was that the site had to be a brownfield. New Belgium purchased the 18-acre property in Asheville, North Carolina in 2012 and in May 2016, opened the doors to its second brewery.

Everyone in Puerto Rico wants a better quality of life for themselves and their children. For many, that includes more resilient infrastructure, continued cleanup, and reconstruction after the September 2017 hurricanes.  Puerto Rico’s economic insolvency makes these matters all the more challenging as financial tools and knowhow can be as scarce as clean water. Almost five months after the climate disasters, hundreds of thousands of homes are still without basic utilities. To fill the void, the Center for Creative Land Recycling (CCLR), along with local and national partners, set out to create an action plan to answer critical questions about infrastructure financing, especially for the PR127 Corridor.

When is soil just “dirt”, when is it a waste, and when is it a resource? The answer may be in the eye of the beholder. Given the length of time it takes to create 1 cm3 of topsoil (estimated at 200-400 years), the current approach to managing excess soil at redevelopment sites in the United State (U.S.) merits further analysis.

The “Best of Brewedway” mobile workshop, co-hosted by CCLR at the New Partners for Smart Growth conference, highlighted the roles that cities and developers play in promoting smart infill development on brownfield sites.