Pottstown Gets Federal $300,000 Clean-up Grant

This map shows the Keystone Employment and Economic Plan region along Keystone Boulevard in Pottstown and West Pottsgrove township, part of which is now eligible to access $300,000 in EPA brownfield clean-up funds.

Re-development projects in downtown and along Keystone Boulevard may get a boost from a $300,000 grant announced Wednesday.

The grant is from the Environmental Protection Agency's "Brownfield" program, which seeks to clean contamination out of old industrial and commercial sites to get them ready for redevelopment.

The grant was awarded to the Montgomery County Redevelopment Authority, but is specific to two census tracts in Pottstown.

One includes the downtown area from South Washington Street east, as well as the properties along Keystone Boulevard, a priority area for redevelopment in the borough.

“I am delighted to announce this much needed investment from the EPA into the cleanup of these abandoned industrial sites in the district,” said U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-4th Dist.

“This project will launch the environmental cleanup of neglected properties and boost the revitalization efforts that have been ongoing in Pottstown,” Dean said in a press release.

"I'm confident this grant program can assist in attracting development because it can cover front-end costs," said Jerry Nugent, executive director of the re-development authority.

The ribbon cutting for Cedarville Engineering at the 

BB&T Bank building in 2018.

He said the program has already worked well in Pottstown, helping to move numerous redevelopment projects closer to completion.

For example, Brownfields funding was used to identify lead and asbestos in the top three floors of the
BB & T Bank building at the northwest corner of High and Hanover streets.

"That assessment allowed us to provide a low-interest $250,000 loan to clean it up," he said.

Those floors are now home to a growing engineering company, Cedarville Engineering.

The brownfields assessment program has also helped identify contamination at the borough's Pollock Park and the ongoing clean-up at Pottstown Plating, located at the corner of South Washington Street and Industrial Highway.

Clean-up efforts continue at the former Pottstown Plating.

A brownfield grant also helped to identify contaminants at the former PECO sub-station that is now home to the Schuylkill River Greenways National Heritage Area and Montgomery County Community College Innovation Center in Riverfront Park.

"If you want to get financing, the first thing the bank requires is a phase one environmental assessment and these grants can help cover those costs to make sure the re-development project does not become unsustainable economically," Nugent explained.

A member of Pottstown's Blighted Property Review Committee, Nugent is intimately familiar with neglected properties in the borough in need of redevelopment.

So too is Peggy Lee-Clark, the executive director of Pottstown Area Industrial Development, the borough's economic development arm.

She said although the Keystone Boulevard area, which is part of a specific re-development plan called KEEP, is a borough priority, she wanted to make sure the grant could also be used downtown.

PAID Executive Director Peggy Lee-Clark in front of a 

map of the KEEP redevelopment zone.

"I did not want to limit it to the Keystone site," Lee-Clark said. "With all the types of industry which
were in Pottstown in the past, I've always said you could drill into the middle of High Street and find an environmental issue."

"We didn't want to be locked into a single project, and the redevelopment authority has been very nimble, stepping in when its needed," she said.

Just last month, a $142 million "green energy" business was proposed for the borough's western border off Keystone Boulevard.

The project is the first to be considered under the KEEP plan for Keystone Boulevard, a joint plan between the borough and West Pottsgrove Township that has been seven years in the making.

KEEP stands for Keystone Employment and Economic Plan.

Nugent said generally, the EPA likes to see the money spent within two years and is part of the application process through the redevelopment authority to access the money.

"It can be extended for the right reason, and we've been pretty lucky with EPA and have a good track record with them," Nugent said.

Brownfield Benefits

Nationwide, 151 communities are selected to receive grant awards totaling over $65.6 million. in EPA brownfields funding.

Eight of those were in in Pennsylvania totaling $3.7 million and the only one was awarded in Montgomery County.

“These grants will help communities in need transform contaminated sites into community assets that not only create jobs and jumpstart economic development but also improve public health and the environment,” EPA Regional Administrator Cosmo Servidio, said in a press release announcing the grants.

“These funds are going to areas that need them the most. Several of the selected recipients are receiving Brownfields grants for the first time or targeted to areas within Opportunity Zones,” he said.

In fact, the two Census tracts identified in this grant are two of the three identified in the federal Opportunity Zones identified in the 2018 tax reform, which offer tax benefits for developments located in the zone.

The benefit for the investors is it allows them to defer and, in some cases eliminate, income taxes on the capital gains earned from the investments those funds make in projects in the low-income Census tracts designated as “Opportunity Zones.”

There are estimated to be more than 450,000 brownfields in the United States.

EPA’s Brownfields Program began in 1995 and has provided nearly $1.6 billion in brownfield grants to assess and clean up contaminated properties and return blighted properties to productive reuse, according to the agency website.

To date, brownfields investments have leveraged more than $31 billion in cleanup and redevelopment. "Over the years, the relatively small investment of federal funding leveraged more than 160,000 jobs from both public and private sources," according to the site, which also noted the program also:
Increases Local Tax Revenue: A study of 48 brownfield sites found that an estimated $29 million to $97 million in additional local tax revenue was generated in a single year after cleanup. This is two to seven times more than the $12.4 million EPA contributed to the cleanup of these sites.
Increases Residential Property Values: Another study found that property values of homes near revitalized brownfields sites increased between 5 and 15 percent following cleanup.

Through fiscal year 2019, on average, $17.45 was leveraged for each EPA Brownfields dollar and nine jobs leveraged per $100,000 of EPA brownfields funds expended on assessment, cleanup, and revolving loan fund cooperative agreements, according to EPA statistics.

"Brownfield sites also tend to have greater location efficiency than alternative development scenarios," according to the agency.

Results of five pilot studies show a 32 to 57 percent reduction in vehicle miles traveled when development occurred at a brownfield site rather than a greenfield.

Fewer vehicle miles traveled means a reduction in pollution emissions including greenhouse gases. These same site comparisons show an estimated 47 to 62 percent reduction of stormwater runoff for brownfield site development.

'Green Energy' Plant Proposed for Keystone Blvd.

Photos from Screenshots

Terry Planton, CEO of SEP-1, makes a virtual presentation on his company's plan to build off Keystone Boulevard during Wednesday night's online Pottstown Borough Council work session.

Who says you can't press forward with a new business in the midst of a worldwide pandemic?

Not Pottstown.

During Wednesday night's council work session, the first of what promises to be many on-line virtual civic meetings, an update on a new business proposed for Keystone Boulevard was unveiled.

The proposal calls for the construction of a $142 million "green renewable diesel production plan" that creates diesel fuel from cellulose items like paper and cardboard.

It also produces a "co-product" called "bio-char" that is used in agriculture as a soil additive, according to Terry Planton, CEO of SEP-1, the development company looking to build the plant.

Map of the KEEP planning region.

The project is the first to be considered under the KEEP plan for Keystone Boulevard, a joint plan
between the borough and West Pottsgrove Township has has been seven years in the making.

(KEEP stands for Keystone Employment and Economic Plan.)

The plan seeks to attract light industrial, office and residential uses to the 255 acres along the Schuylkill River in both municipalities, and thus to help fund the extension of Keystone Boulvard to the Grosstown Road interchange with Route 422.

Borough Manager Jason Keller said this proposal, planned for 451 Keystone Blvd, which is where the road currently ends, is the first to come in under the umbrella of that plan.

The proposed plant would take in recycled cellulose like paper, cardboard, wood pallets and other non-food organic material and heat it to 2000 degrees, "but not burn it," according to Planton.

This process, called "thermal decomposition" that is undertaken in the absence of oxygen, would create a bio-diesel product and the bio-char product, which is much like fireplace ash and comprises fully 20 percent of the plant's revenue stream.

The bio-char will be transported in "closed containers" and will not be lose, Planton said.

It is a "closed loop," said Planton, noting there is no smell, little to no emissions and no noise louder than the freight trains that play the tracks through Pottstown day and night. Two similar plants are already in operation in Tennessee, he said.

If approved, the plant would employ 68 people full time, working in three shifts over 24 hours and have a $3.9 million payroll with an average wage of $58,000, according to Planton, who added that the company is "committed to hiring locally to fill our positions."

When up and running, the plant would generate $39,000 a year in wage taxes for Pottstown, along with about $551,000 in property taxes, according to Planton.

There is already a detailed sketch plan for the project.

Construction, which would begin in June, 2021 according to the schedule, would take 18 months and employ 174 construction workers.

If the schedule holds, the plant would be up and running by January of 2023.

Keller praised the design and of the site, saying the office building up front, and evergreen screening all about will hide most of the site from the road.

"All operations take place inside," said Planton, although it will require 50 trucks a day to keep the plant running.

The idea is to use the plant as leverage to help push the extension of Keystone Boulevard so those trucks can go directly to and from Route 422 to Keystone Boulevard.

Because the project is occurring under the KEEP plan, the KEEP Oversight Committee, which has representatives from both the borough and West Pottsgrove, will act as the planning commission for the project, said Keller.

Borough staff is also recommending a change to the borough's zoning. The current zoning "did not anticipate such a use and this is cutting-edge technology," Matthew Hovey, the borough's assistant solicitor, said during the meeting.

Requiring the company to seek a variance from the zoning hearing board could present difficulties "because the legal standard to obtaining a variance, showing hardship, is high," Hovey said.

Better, he said, to create a new category for a "gasification facility."

Council agreed and will vote Monday on advertising a change to the zoning ordinance, which will allow for adoption at the June meeting.

The deal has also generated a "memorandum of understanding" between the borough and the developers, to clearly outline the responsibilities of each, Keller explained.

Attendees at Wednesday's Borough Council work session

recite in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Planton praised the borough for its cooperation. "They haven't missed a beat and we are still on
schedule. In these times, we find that astounding," Planton said of the difficulties of conducting business planning during a worldwide pandemic.

"Our finance team in New York is ecstatic that we are still on schedule," he added.

"We welcome new businesses to the borough," said Council President Dan Weand.

"I can't wait to see what it looks like when they get it up and running," said Councilman Don Lebedynsky.

"I am very much in favor of this," said Councilman Ryan Procsal, who is in the KEEP Oversight Committee. "I think it's a great way to develop our last frontier along the riverfront."

The Key is the Highway in West Pottsgrove

The shaded area on this map between High Street and the Schuylkill River shows the area which could be developed under the guidelines Pottstown Borough and West Pottsgrove Township are being asked to agree to and work toward.

West Pottsgrove Township Commissioners Wednesday voted 4-1 to move ahead with a plan to work together with Pottstown Borough to try to develop, or in some cases re-develop, the 255 acres along the Schuylkill River south of High Street.

Commissioners Chairman Steve Miller cast the dissenting vote after repeatedly asking the representatives from the Montgomery County Planning Commission and PAID whether the 13 owners of the properties in question had made any commitment to contributing to what could amount to an improvement to their properties.

The primary issue is the extension of Keystone Boulevard, which currently connects to College Drive in the borough and was always intended to continue through West Pottsgrove and the former Flagg Brass site to reach Grosstown Road.

Now that PennDOT is re-aligning Route 422 and creating a new, more user-friendly Grosstown Road interchange, the connection significantly increases the attractiveness of the acreage there, said John Cover, chief of community planning for the Montgomery County Planning Commission.

They key question, if you'll allow me the pun, is who will pay to extend the road?

"It looks to me like you guys want West Pottsgrove to do the heavy lifting while these guys get the benefit," Miller said, who three times asked why none of the property owners had ever appeared before the township board to explain their support and their willingness to contribute.

Peggy Lee-Clark, executive director of Pottstown Area Industrial Development, said many of the owners have agreed to make a contribution, adding "I just can't give you a dollar figure right now because we don't have all the costs."

The vote the commissioners took authorizes the formation of a permanent committee, with representatives from both West Pottsgrove and the borough, and makes them part of a memorandum of understanding that will allow for two things -- an engineering study and a request seeking out interested developers.

For the developers, said Cover, the road will be a central question. It is up to the

This conceptual design from a presentation made in
February 

shows "high-end" residential
developments along 

Route 100 in Pottstown.

elected officials to decide whether to build it first to attract developers, or wait to see if any developers or property owners volunteer to help with the costs.

"The big obstacle," Cover said, "is the road and expecting a developer to do that may be a bridge too far. Otherwise the properties may remain the way they are."

"Building the road first requires a leap of faith, but sometimes development requires that," said Cover.

The concept calls for a mix of development including residential, described as “high-end apartments,” and non-residential uses, which include industrial, office and research and development.

Because so much of the design work has already been done, Michael Narcowich, a principal planner with the Montgomery County Planning Commission, said the defined plan can supercede zoning “and allow a developer to proceed directly to final plan approval,” during a presentation to Pottstown Borough Council in February.

Allowing a developer who follows the plan to proceed to the final planning step “is a powerful tool” to attract developers and gives the municipalities more direct control over what gets built, said Community Planning Chief John Cover.

West Pottsgrove Commissioner Mark Green noted that most of the $10 million tax benefit goes to Pottstown. "That's because their tax millage rate is much higher," Cover replied.

According to the planning commission’s analysis, a build out of the plan would provide an additional $65.2 million in increased property value for the residential portion in the borough; and $47.2 million for West Pottsgrove.

On the non-residential side of the equation, a build out would result in another $51.8 million in non-residential property assessment for Pottstown, and another $37.5 million for West Pottsgrove.

All together, that a total of $201.8 million added to the tax base of the two towns.

In Pottstown, that would add an additional $1.2 million annually to the borough budget and another $4.6 million in tax revenues to the school budget.

In West Pottsgrove, the township would see an additional $211,819 in annual tax revenues and the Pottsgrove School District would see $3,208,039 more in taxes every year.

That's revenue the township might want to consider given that later in the meeting, Township Manager Craig Lloyd said Montgomery County recently informed him the total assessed value of property in West Pottsgrove is now $179,529,641, down from $200 million the previous year.

Green also remarked that before Pottstown looks to partner with West Pottsgrove, "they should get their downtown in shape first. Pottstown is going down the tubes."

Lee-Clark said she "takes issue" with that view, pointing to at least a half-dozen success stories going on in downtown Pottstown right now, including a microbrewery, a new restaurant and an engineering firm that will soon employ 50 people.

Cover agreed, saying "there is increased interest in Pottstown and they are on the verge. It's a good time to be a developer in Pottstown right now."

That being said, Lee-Clark said there is not as much vacant commercial space in the borough as some may believe, and there is a market to develop the property along the river.

"I get calls every day about space in Pottstown, and the calls are increasing," said Lee-Clark, adding "and there is a need to space and expansion out there."

Of course, being along the river, much of that property is already in the flood plain, and so anyone who wants to develop it will need lots of fill to raise it above the flood plain level.

We don't say this too often, but "PennDOT to the rescue!"

Cover said the ongoing project to rebuild Route 422, including the Grosstown Road interchange and two new bridges is generating a lot of fill, which is usually expensive to transport.

But thanks to an agreement by the owners of the 80-acre former Flagg Brass property, that fill is being stored there free of charge and will be available free to help raise the developments and the Keystone Boulevard extension above the flood plain level.

In Other News

There are two other things worth reporting out of last night's meeting.

The first is confirmation of what most had already guessed at. Township Manager Craig Lloyd said with the purchase of the YMCA building in Pottstown by a private developer, the organization has indicated it has no interest in running the pool program at the township pool this summer.

As a result, the pool will remain closed.

Also, Miller announced the remaining community day committee planning meetings are July 10, Aug. 7, Aug. 21 and Sept. 11 at 7 p.m. in the township meeting room. The event is planned for Oct. 13, with a rain date of Oct. 14.

And with that, here are the Tweets:

The Key is the Highway

Pottstown Takes Expensive Step for Redevelopment

Pottstown Plating is located at the intersection of Industrial Highway

and South Washington St.

Rebuilding and redeveloping an old industrial town involves tough choices.

When an industrial company goes under, it means it has no money to pay employees, or for anything else -- particularly an expensive environmental clean-up.

So it's little surprise that when Pottstown Plating finally went belly up more than 10 years ago, it not only wasn't paying its taxes, or its water and sewer bills, there's no way it was paying to clean up the mess decades of plating operations had left behind at the South Washington Street facility.

As the unpaid taxes and fees build up, the potential for someone to come along and take on not only the liability for the environmental clean-up, but also the financial liability of the ever-escalating fees and taxes, dwindles.

Usually, to unlock this Gordian Knot, something has to give. Monday night, borough council indicated its willingness to not so much give, as forgive.

Even though Interim Borough Manager Justin Keller would not reveal the identity of the developer who is interested, brought through PAID Executive Editor Peggy Lee-Clark, council willingly voted unanimously to forgive more than $225,000 worth of unpaid taxes and water/sewer bills.

That's because they know that it may be the only way that property starts generating tax revenue again, and without that forgiveness, the numbers of uncollected taxes, funds and fines will keep growing with little hope of ever collecting it -- little more than numbers on a page.

The money is already written off, and so is not revenue expected for this year's budget. The mystery developers will still need to convince the school board to forgive another $308,000 that the property owes the school district to move forward.

Keller said that will be on Thursday's school board meeting agenda.

Before the forgiveness becomes final, the developers must present -- and council must approve -- a business plan for the property

Keller, noting that the developer has plans to invest $2 million into the property to get it back onto the tax rolls, said "quite frankly we're lucky to have a developer take on these risks and expenses,"

Apparently, council agreed. 

Here are the Tweets from the meeting: