After Removing Tons of Soil, Brownfield site Fit for Housing

For 14 months, Brenda Corbett watched a wave of long-awaited change rolling over her neighborhood in west central Spokane. On the edge of the neighborhood, 78 acres in the Spokane's downtown sat empty and neglected for more than 50 years. The property was drawing more crime than development. It was a dumping ground for refuse. The land was riddled with contamination from years of use as a rail maintenance yard.

A Couer d'Alene, Idaho, developer in just more than a year cleaned up this massive site, removing 223,000 tons of contaminated soil. That's enough polluted soil to cover 83 football fields. The developer's plans call for building 2,600 residences and 1 million sq.ft. of commercial space on the land, transforming the new development into a hub of activity.

For Corbett, the benefits are much simpler. It's a chance for the neighborhood to become whole again. "What we're gaining is a catalyst for change," said Corbett, who's lived there 35 years. "We have a promise of new neighbors."

Developer Marshall Chesrown of River Front Properties is making that promise to be a good neighbor to this Spokane neighborhood in the heart of the city's downtown and along a portion of the Spokane River. About $5.6 million was spent this past year cleaning up the contaminated property, now called Kendall Yards. The site received a $3.4 million loan from the state's brownfields loan fund, the largest such loan in the nation. In April, the EPA awarded the project team a National Notable Achievement Award for its approach in getting the site assessed and cleaned up in 12 months, a process that normally takes about two years.

Kendall Yards, formerly known as the Summit Property, was operated by Union Pacific Railroad from 1914 to 1955. Once a railway maintenance complex, the land stretches about 30 city blocks. Because of the property's former use and some earlier testing by a previous property owner, it was no secret the land was contaminated. Officials estimated about 90,000 tons of soil would have to be removed from the site. In the end, that number would nearly triple.

"We found a lot of stuff that wasn't on the record," said John Foxwell of Geo Engineers, the Portland-based environmental consulting company working with Chesrown.

The bulk of the contamination was limited to about 20 acres, said Sandra Treccani, site manager for DOE. While no ground water contamination was found, officials found fly ash with lead and arsenic. The fly ash was from coal-fired locomotives that once were worked on at the site. There were many areas where the ash had been mixed in with the soil, Treccani said.

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Also found was bunker C, a grade of petroleum-based fuel that's very thick and once was used to fuel old train engines. While the bunker C also was no surprise, officials were shocked to learn it had moved much deeper than thought the thick fuel could travel - in some places as much as 60 to 70 feet below the final grade, Treccani said.

Both Treccani and Foxwell point to the massiveness of the project as a hurdle in its cleanup. Most of the projects she's worked on in the past required the removal of about 20,000 tons of soil, Treccani said. This site was 10 times the size of any she had ever managed.

"It had been sitting there for a long, long time and nobody wanted to tackle it," she said.

Kendall Yards also was one of the biggest challenges Geo Engineers has faced, Foxwell added. "It's a daunting project, there's no doubt about it," he said. Its enormity and complexity is why the previous property owner did not follow through on cleanup plans, he added.

Typically, cleanup projects like Kendall Yards take many years to complete, Foxwell said. Although nearly triple the contamination was found, the project was completed only 30 days past its original finish date, he said. Envirocon, the contractor, did a fantastic job of moving the soil, Foxwell said.

He's never worked on a project where the developer, the regulatory agencies and the financier were more committed to a common goal, Foxwell said. Everyone had a vision and understood the importance of this project to the local economy, he said.

"They rose to the challenge and saw the benefit to themselves and the community," Foxwell said.

Chesrown could have excavated the site 15 feet and capped the remaining contamination with concrete. However, he chose to remove it all because he wanted unrestrictive use of the property. In some areas, especially in the case of the bunker C, Chesrown went three to four times deeper than required, Treccani said. This choice doubled the cost of the cleanup, she said.

However, Chesrown was undaunted by this. "We think it's the absolute best move for Spokane," said Chesrown, who'd never worked on a brownfield site before Kendall Yards.

Chesrown's plans for the site will be finalized when a new planned unit development is approved by the city of Spokane. Preliminary plans (www.kendall- yards.com) call for building a combination of townhouses, apartments and condos along with shopping plazas and retail space. The urban development would be directly connected to downtown Spokane. More people are eager to make downtown areas their homes, said Chesrown, pointing to such examples as Seattle, Portland and Boise, Idaho. The first phase of construction, to be from Monroe to Maple streets, should take about 18 months to complete at a cost of about $300 million, Chesrown said.

The project is expected to have a major impact on Spokane's downtown, as well as throughout the city. An estimated 500 jobs will be created during the construction phase. Up to 2,500 permanent jobs could be created when the commercial space is finished, according to statistics from the Washington State Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development (CTED). The redevelopment will return more than $32 million to the state and local government during construction, according to CTED.

Located in one of the poorest areas in Spokane County, the development's economic impact will come in many ways. This project will increase property values, provide valuable jobs and, with the city's Centennial Trail running through it, serve as a gateway to the surrounding community.

Perhaps more important, downtown Spokane is getting a neighborhood that's now safer for families, Foxwell said. "Before the first yard of cement concrete is poured, the surrounding neighborhoods have received a tremendous benefit," he said.

Jill FitzSimmons is a freelance journalist working with the Washington state Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development.