USEPA Community-Wide Assessment Brownfield Grant

The City of Detroit received a $500,000 2024 USEPA Community-Wide Assessment Brownfield Grant to support equitable redevelopment in neighborhoods impacted by historic industrial and commercial land uses.

The grant focuses on properties within ½ mile of the Joe Louis Greenway (JLG) in two Target Areas:

• North Campau and Campau/Banglatown
• Corktown and North Corktown

Grant Priorities

The grant will support environmental assessments and cleanup planning for priority brownfield properties, helping remove barriers to redevelopment by providing critical information about environmental conditions.

Redevelopment strategies will focus on:

• Connecting neighborhoods to the Joe Louis Greenway and surrounding communities
• Increasing access to greenspace
• Supporting affordable housing and mixed-use commercial development
• Creating opportunities for jobs and economic growth
• Addressing areas impacted by historic disinvestment

Priority sites were selected based on community needs identified through Detroit’s strategic neighborhood plans. Many of these brownfield properties are located near homes, schools, churches, and parks.

Environmental and Community Benefits

The grant will help advance redevelopment while reducing environmental and climate-related impacts through:

• Improved air and water quality
• Stormwater management and reduced flooding
• Tree planting and vegetative buffers
• Reduced heat impacts
• Reuse of previously developed properties

By investing in assessment and cleanup planning, the grant helps make JLG neighborhoods more attractive for responsible development and supports inclusive, equitable growth for Detroit communities.

This grant for  $300,000 targeted commercial corridors in Campau/Banglatown, Island view/Greater Villages, and Jefferson Chalmers. Through this assessment grant, the City of Detroit BSEED-EA has assessed fourteen properties. These activities have included Phase I and Phase II Environmental Site Assessments, cleanup planning, and development of a brownfield inventory. At closeout in December 2022, outcomes of the grant included: 6 housing projects, a mixed-use development, and a cultural center. The City and its consultant built a searchable database with customizable queries where site history, reports, and other brownfield data are stored. The database will be expanded as new brownfield sites are identified. The brownfield inventory assists with management, tracking, reporting, prioritizing and marketing of brownfields throughout the City of Detroit. 

This grant for $350,000 and a FY19 Cleanup grant for $436,742 to assess and cleanup Riverside Park. These funds were used to remove contaminated soil on parcel 3 of the park making it safe for public use. This in turn has allowed the Detroit General Services Department to re-open, expand and redevelop the park into a state-of-the-art recreational asset for all Detroiters!