Page 86 - Beyond Decommissioning

The phases of redevelopment 67

Owner options for a retired plant

1. Keep standby 2. Mothball 3. Decommission 4. Sell as—is

Partial Redevelop for
Redevelop for
decommissioning Repower residential or
and remediation industrial use mixed use

Remediate to Remediate to
? brownfield greenfield

Sale or Sale or
redevelop redevelop

Fig. 3.2 The four options for a retired power plant.

Since this book is about redevelopment (with or without demolition) only option 3 will
be reviewed in the remaining chapters. The four options are graphically illustrated in
Fig. 3.2.

A difficult case of redevelopment
Local governments may feel interested in purchasing an industrial site. Because local governments
are normally well capitalized, there is little risk that they would be unable to support environmental
remediation costs. Additionally, they may often purchase the site at a low price and redevelop it as
green space or for other community-oriented projects. However, the extent of the environmental
liabilities may remain undisclosed to the local governments or they may be unaware of the need for
characterization surveys. If large-scale environmental remediation is required, local taxpayers may
end up paying for the cleanup.
In 1990, the city of Allentown, PA, was donated a 2.6-ha riverfront industrial facility: the donor
had purchased the property years earlier for $250,000. The city accepted the donation with the
objective of converting the site into a mixed-use development. However, environmental liabilities
delayed the project for more than 10 years, with the remediation and redevelopment escalating at
some $17 million. Ultimately, the site was remediated and a museum built with $12.4 million con-
tributed by the State of PA and the federal budget (Raimi, 2017).