Pearl River, N.Y.-based HDR|LMS, along with its clients, has won Phoenix Awards for revitalizing two key brownfield sites in the northeast United States. The Phoenix Awards honor individuals and groups working to transform abandoned industrial areas into productive new uses. Ten winners were selected, one from each of the 10 Environmental Protection Agency regions. Projects receiving honors were the Fulton Fish Market site in New York City (Region 2), and the former Bethlehem Steel site in Bethlehem, Pa. (Region 3). The Bethlehem Commerce Center project also received the People's Choice Award at the Brownfields 2006 conference in Boston, which is presented to theproject receiving the most votes from 7,000 conference attendees.
Bethlehem Steel Corporation impacted the nation and its community. Once the Pennsylvania Lehigh Valley region's largest employer, it provided the steel that helped America and its allies win two global wars andtransformed the national landscape. Its Bethlehem, Pa., plant operated for 140 years. After the plant closed, the 1,000-acre property represented the most important economic development project in the region as well as the nation's largest privately held brownfield site. In April 2004, United States Cold Storage was the first business to open at the new Bethlehem Commerce Center. It is expected to create 90 new jobs and $800,000 in property taxes. The city's largest employer, Receivable Management Services, is expected to house its global headquarters on the site and create an additional 800 jobs.
The Fulton Fish Market is the largest wholesale fish market in the United States. Housed in lower Manhattan since 1822, it was relocated to a site in Hunts Point in the Bronx, which formerly housed one of New York City's largest manufactured gas plants. The plant, owned and operated by Consolidated Edison of New York, began operating in 1926 and continued through the late 1950s to early 1960s. The new Fulton Fish Market opened for business in November 2005. In its expanded location, it is expected to generate more than $1 billion in business per year.
HDR¦LMS helped client New York City Economic DevelopmentCorporation with site investigation, remediation and agency consultation in a compressed timeframe. Ninety percent of the waste material extracted from the site was incinerated and used to provide electricity equivalent to supply 10,000 homes for three months.
Created in 1997, the Phoenix Awards honor individuals and groups who are working to solve the critical environmental challenge of transforming blighted and contaminated areas into productive new uses. They are open to any individual, group, company,organization, government body, or agency. Criteria focus on project magnitude, innovation, regulatory solutions, and community impact. For more information, visit www.phoenixawards.org.
Since 1995 the Engineers' Society of Western Pennsylvania has presented an annual conference on the subject of brownfields reclamation. Then it conducted the Industrial Site Recycling Conference for five successful years. Since that time, ESWP has partnered with the U.S. EPA on the National Brownfields Conference for three events in 2000, 2001 and 2002. In 2003 ESWP again sponsored its own conference returning to Pittsburgh with the Business of Brownfield conference, attracting over 300 attendees in both 2003 and 2004. In 2006, the conference moved to Seven Springs Mountain Resort in Champion, Pa. Now in 2007 it is in downtown Pittsburgh at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.
