HUNTINGTON — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced $3.3 million in funding Thursday to clean up eight brownfield sites in West Virginia, including two in Huntington.
According to the announcement, the city of Huntington will receive $350,000 to perform an environmental site assessment on the former ACF Industries site and Cornerstone Community Development Corp. will receive $462,590 to clean up the 13-story Prichard Building.
The grants were announced by EPA Regional Administrator Cosmo Servidio in a virtual roundtable that was streamed online because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
“The funding we are announcing today is particularly important to the many communities that are hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Servidio said. “Brownfield funding can be an important stimulus for economic development and community revitalization.”
Thursday’s roundtable also included Huntington Mayor Steve Williams; U.S. Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va.; Casey Korbini, deputy director for Remediation Programs at West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection; Nikki Thomas, executive director of the Cornerstone Community Development Corp.; and members of the media.
In February, Williams and the Huntington Municipal Development Authority announced the $3.12 million purchase of the former ACF Industries complex along 3rd Avenue, a tract eyed for redeveloping in that area of the city. The 42-acre former rail car manufacturing facility includes property between 3rd Avenue and the Ohio River along 24th Street and a parking lot on the south side of 3rd Avenue.
Acquisition of the complex is central to the city’s plan to remake that area and surrounding properties into the Huntington Brownfields Innovation Zone, or H-BIZ. The grant announced Thursday will help conduct an environmental site assessment and develop reuse and cleanup plans for the site, which has sat idle for the past 20 years.
Williams lauded the EPA and congressional leaders for taking steps to help revitalize Huntington and clean up the ACF site and the Prichard Building.
“We have two distinctly, historically unique properties that have an opportunity to be repurposed,” Williams said. “ACF Industries began its life when Huntington was founded in 1871.”
Late last year, Cornerstone Community Development Corp. purchased the Prichard Building, more recently known as Hope Tower, in the 600 block of 9th Street in Huntington.
The historic building at the southwest corner of 6th Avenue and 9th Street originated as the 300-room Prichard Hotel. The Prichard ceased operation as a hotel in 1970, and it was converted into an apartment building with some businesses in the ground floor. The building has sat empty for the past couple of years, with reports of glass falling from its windows.
The city previously used EPA brownfield grant funding to assess the building, which is contaminated with inorganic contaminates and metals. Thursday’s announced grant will help clean up asbestos, mold, lead-based paints and outdated lighting fixtures containing harmful materials from inside the hotel.
Once it is cleaned, the building will be redeveloped to include commercial business space and a community center space and senior-assisted living spaces on the upper floors.
“Revitalizing hazardous work sites and repurposing them for new businesses is exactly the type of innovation that will help to create new jobs and grow our state’s economy,” Miller said. “I am pleased to see Administrator (Andrew) Wheeler and the entire EPA continue to prioritize our communities. Together we will make West Virginia a safer, healthier and economically stronger place to live, work and raise a family.”
The EPA also announced grants Thursday for the Braxton County Development Authority, the Brooke-Hancock Region XI Regional Planning and Development Council, the New River Gorge Regional Development Authority, the West Virginia Land Stewardship Corp. and the West Virginia University Research Corp.
