HUNTINGTON — Some environmental test results are still pending at the former ACF Industries property.
Cathy Burns, the executive director of the Huntington Municipal Development Authority, said preliminary tests were done on the site in February 2020 and more comprehensive tests in October through December. But all of the results have not come back yet.
Burns said the city has received some test results on 5 acres of the south side of the property near 3rd Avenue that show the area as environmentally clean. The land was the former parking lot for ACF.
To be environmentally clean means the land meets a higher threshold of standards and can have housing on it, Burns said. This opens the door for more marketability of the land as developers can use the space for both commercial and residential property.
“It’s a valuable piece of property,” Burns added, explaining that it’s a flat area and it’s hard to find 40 acres of land that is developable. She added that the area has multiple utilities already, such as water, sewer, electric and gas.
The certificate is a document that can be shown to developers to give information about the quality of the site, Burns said. She added that the city anticipates receiving the certificate by year’s end.
Burns said the city has been working with the West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office to determine what buildings on the property could be demolished and which could be saved for future use. This process is already underway. If a developer were to save a property, that could open the door for historic tax credits.
Burns said the State Historic Preservation Office also worked with the city to identify historical monuments on the property to continue incorporating history. One such area is a plaque for World War I veterans. Burns said the city is aware of it and plans to keep maintaining it.
A marketability study was put on hold amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Burns said. That study will probably be done toward the end of 2021 or in 2022 as markets stabilize. The plan is still to continue developing the land for mixed-use development.
Pat Jones, who represents the Highlawn neighborhood on City Council, said the development of the former ACF property is a great opportunity for the neighborhood. He highlighted that the land has several incentives for a developer, such as proximity to the Ohio River, being along U.S. 60 and being near Marshall University. There are also a number of good revitalization projects underway in Highlawn, such as the Love Your Block and Project SHINE programs.
“It’s a prime piece of real estate, really. It’s just going to take the right person to want to develop it,” Jones said.
The property, located along the north and south sides of 3rd Avenue and 24th Street, is central to a plan to remake that area and surrounding properties into the Huntington Brownfields Innovation Zone, or H-BIZ. This was a key component of a plan Huntington leaders submitted to the America’s Best Communities competition, winning a $3 million grand prize in April 2017 to help make it a reality.
Some environmental test results pending on ACF property; part of land is 'environmentally clean' - Huntington Herald Dispatch
Read More
No comments:
Post a Comment