The first county-led brownfield coalition in Wisconsin funded through a USEPA brownfields assessment grant

CLIENT: Washington County, Wisconsin

DATES: 2014 -present

NEED: As industry moves from central city locations, the larger communities in particular have faced common environmental barriers to redevelopment of former industrial sites. The six coalition members—Washington County, Hartford, West Bend, Richfield, Slinger, and Jackson—all face similar challenges.

V&A ROLE: Vandewalle & Associates was hired as part of a consulting team with Stantec, Inc. to assist with the creation and management of the Washington County Site Redevelopment Program (SRP). Vandewalle & Associates also played a key role in developing the Washington County Site Redevelopment Program, including:

  • Establishing a Site Redevelopment Committee with representation from the coalition partners;
  • Advancing the project management team of the County, Economic Development Washington County, Stantec, and V&A;
  • Developing a countywide inventory of brownfield sites using a three-tiered selection process;
  • Creating a GIS database and project maps and graphics to accompany the countywide inventory of sites;
  • Conducting public meetings to gather input on community priorities for addressing brownfield considerations;
  • Developing criteria to score and rank all sites based on environmental conditions, redevelopment potential, and community priorities;
  • Developing quarterly fact sheets, outreach material, and press releases;
  • Preparing reuse strategies for coalition partner’s priority sites.

IMPACT: To date, impacts have included:

  • 32 brownfield acres redeveloped
  • 262 new housing units constructed
  • additional $219,000 investment in environmental assessments
  • additional $2,436,000 investment in abatement, demolition, or cleanup
  • additional $58,560,000 investment in construction

Over the next several years V&A will help identify and secure additional sources of funding to address environmental assessment and cleanup needs, prepare redevelopment plans and concepts, and connect developers with sites. The result will be a long-term redevelopment program with measurable positive impacts.