The EPA has awarded $600,000 in grants to help with the environmental cleanup of two metro-area sites – Denver’s blighted Dahlia Square shopping center and the Lakewood corridor where FasTracks will run.
The grants are part of a $75 million award from the Environmental Protection Agency for projects to revitalize former industrial and commercial sites in 44 states.
“These grants give local partnerships the ability to address environmental issues at sites that are being transformed into vital assets,” EPA assistant regional administrator Max Dodson said Tuesday in a release.
The EPA granted $200,000 to Parkhill Community Inc., a nonprofit subsidiary of Denver- based real-estate developers Brownfield Partners, which owns Dahlia Square. The money will be used to remove chemical waste created by dry-cleaning businesses and toxins left by a landfill that predated the shopping center in northeast Park Hill, said Kathleen Atencio, Brownfield’s coordinator for the EPA in Denver.
The northeast Denver shopping center near East 33rd Avenue and Dahlia Street was once a booming retail outlet touted as the largest black-owned shopping center in the country.
City and neighborhood leaders have worked to revitalize the property for more than a decade, and homes and retail establishments are planned on the site. Denver has allocated $3.5 million for the cleanup, which is anticipated to be completed by October 2006.
Lakewood will receive $400,000 to assess environmental damage and develop cleanup plans for sites located along the West Colfax Avenue corridor, a 12-mile stretch that follows the path of an abandoned rail line.
“We know of some areas where there were gas stations, repair shops and where oil products were stored in ways that, in the ’40s and ’50s, they weren’t as careful about,” said Lakewood city planner Frank Gray.
Staff writer Ann Schrader contributed to this report.
Staff writer Tom McGhee can be reached at 303-820-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com.
