City tackling Muncie's brownfields

MUNCIE — They range in size from a parcel of land where a new downtown hotel is being built to acres of land where heavy industry operated for decades. They range in nature from a former video rental store to a former auto parts plant.

They are Muncie's brownfields: properties where industrial and commercial operations, from wire manufacturers to a near-downtown bar, once did business.

There are 68 of them, counting a handful in Delaware County's towns outside Muncie.

Some, like four parcels where the Courtyard hotel is being built on the south edge of downtown, have been dealt with. Others, like the 50-acre Indiana Steel and Wire property on East Jackson Street, have been announced for a new purpose, in that case the Kitselman Pure Energy Park. Still others, like the former BorgWarner Automotive plant along Kilgore Avenue or the site of the former Chevrolet factory along Eighth Street, have seen varying degrees of interest in renewed use.

Reuse of ex-Chevy site could be 'soon'

One thing's for certain: Many of the 68 properties on the list might linger in uncertainty for years to come.

"What the public has to understand is that these problems took a hundred-plus years to develop," local economic development consultant Brad Bookout told The Star Press. "They were created over a long, long period of time. Not to say it will take a hundred years to fix, but it won't take a month."

Bookout, with information from Gretchen Cheesman of Muncie's community development and unsafe building authority staff, compiled the list of brownfields and shared it with The Star Press.

From the big industrial sites, like Chevrolet and Delco Battery, to a former Coca-Cola plant on Willard Street to the former Pastime Bar property at 609 S. Walnut St. to a former video store and tobacco shop on Tillotson Avenue, the sites are identified by address, buildings and testing and remediation efforts, if any.

Assembling a list is a step toward seeking funds for cleanup, monitoring and possible redevelopment. Even a proposal for redevelopment can hurry the process. Bookout cited the former Indiana Steel and Wire, where businessman Gary Dannar wants to build Mobile Power Station vehicles.

"Having end users is always vitally important," Bookout said. "When we have Dannar interested in Indiana Steel and Wire, suddenly there's an interest in cleanup. IDEM gets excited, local government gets excited and the community gets excited."

He cited a downtown success story: The former Holiday Cleaners property is being made into a city greenspace.

Bookout said it was impossible to put a dollar figure to the cost of cleaning up the 68 properties on the list. He noted that some kinds of pollution can dilute over time and that dealing with contamination sometimes has less to do with removing truckloads of contaminated soil and more with capping and monitoring the problem.

But the cost of cleaning up all of the community's brownfields?

"No one has ever done that calculation," he said. "It's always a moving target."

Contact Keith Roysdon at 765-213-5828 and follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

A list of local brownfields

Here are some of the 68 brownfield properties included on a list provided by local economic development consultant Brad Bookout:

Car Doctors, 1004 S. Burlington, cleanup and redevelopment under way.

American Lawnmower, 705 E. 18th St., environmental studies complete.

Former Kiser site, 401 E. Howard St., cleanup complete.

King Indiana Forge, 500 S. Lincoln, environmental studies partially complete.

Chevrolet Muncie, 1200 W. Eighth St., neighborhood lead tests ongoing.

Frank Foundry, 2000 E. Eighth St., environmental testing partially completed.

Muncie Precision Hard Chrome, 1001 E. 18th St., environmental cleanup partially completed.

Hiatt Metal, 720 W. Willard St., submitted to EPA for eligibility consideration.

Indiana Stamping/Duffy Tool, 3401 W. Eighth St., environmental study complete, partial cleanup.

Delco Battery, 4500 S. Delaware St., environmental testing complete, property submitted as shovel-ready.

Jay Petroleum, 108 E. Memorial Drive, limited cleanup by owner.

Stout Battery, 2923 E. Eighth St.

Muncie Paper Processing, 701 W. 23rd St., testing and cleanup complete.

City Machine, 1302 E. Washington St.

Indiana Steel and Wire, 2200 E. Jackson St., containment/redevelopment proposed.

LowBob's/Former Muncie Video 213 S. Tillotson Ave.

Four properties around Liberty and Seymour, Courtyard Hotel site, environmental testing complete, hotel being built.

Former Blaine Elementary School site, 1900 E. Sixth St., environmental testing complete, to be redeveloped as park.

Holiday Cleaners, 101 S. Madison St., city park under way.

Pastime Bar, 609 S. Walnut St.

BorgWarner Automotive, 5601 W. Kilgore Ave., being marketed by owner and city of Muncie.

Budget Inn, 2000 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., demolition complete.