Throughout much of the 20th century, Monroe, Michigan was an industrial city known for its paper production and port facilities. By the latter part of the century, the paper mills and numerous other industrial facilities were shuttered and abandoned, leaving more than 750 acres of brownfields — more than 70-percent of Monroe’s developable land —located near the heart of this city of 20,000 citizens.

Next door to these sites are established low- to moderate-income residential neighborhoods populated by retirees on fixed incomes and young families with children; all populations sensitive to the potential health and safety threats posed by the brownfields.

About 400 acres of the contaminated sites are located at the northeastern gateway to the city along the River Raisin in an area called Paper Mill Row. Starting in 1917, the area was home to three large paper mills, including the Consolidated Packaging Corporation (CPC) Northside Plant, the western-most site of the three.

The plant manufactured corrugated-cardboard shipping stock from 1921 until 1975 and employed 500-600 workers at full production (1965 statistics). Operations included large areas for storage of straw (the raw material for boxboard production). It was also home to a straw pulp mill, paper machines for production of corrugated-shipping stock, box manufacturing and printing, and shipping.

A coal-fired power plant provided process steam and plant heat.

Before the 1940s, coal cinders and ash from the power plant were used to create a two-foot-thick, gravel-like base for storage of coal and straw and for employee parking areas on more than 42 acres of the plant property, which was virtually all of the land not occupied by plant buildings and other structures. Two concrete process wastewater clarifiers and associated subsurface vaults and sewers were added to the site in the late 1950s. Clarifier sludge was dried in unlined drying beds near the clarifiers before disposal.

CPC closed the plant in 1975, and it was abandoned and derelict by the mid 1980s. By 1995, the other two plants also were closed.

A Great Idea
The city purchased the CPC property in the late 1980s. Located on the River Raisin, less than a mile from downtown Monroe, the property adjoined established 1920-1940-era neighborhoods, which were developed principally as housing for mill workers.

Redeveloping the site for industrial purposes would have been inappropriate in the 21st century.

Besides, doing so was prohibited by city planning and zoning ordinances. But residential development was entirely possible, especially because of the existing water, sewer, road, and other infrastructure, which was projected to be sufficient to sustain up to a 500-home residential neighborhood without significant upgrade or modification.

The city envisioned a sustainable, New Urbanism neighborhood that reflected the character and style of the established city neighborhoods and maintained the fabric of the community. Such a development would address a large, long-vacant, environmentally impacted site, improve property values in the adjoining neighborhoods, create much needed new housing stock for middle-income residents in the urban core area of the city, and return a large piece of property to the City’s tax rolls.

The Challenge
In 1997, the City of Monroe teamed with Crosswinds Communities to bring its dream to reality: Mason Run was born, but the growing-up part would not be easy. The property was contaminated by about 42 acres of cinder/ash fill averaging two feet in depth, coal pile residuals, and areas of soil contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), gasoline, lead, arsenic, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and other hazardous constituents. It also was the location of 350,000 square feet of buried plant basements, and the buried foundations and vaults of a wastewater treatment plant, constructed on and filled with industrial and cinder/ash fill.

Remediating the more than 140,000 cubic yards of contaminated cinder/ash fill, the chemically impacted soil, and the impacted fill and residual industrial contamination in and around the basements and other structures did not pose a significant technical challenge for brownfield professional James M. Harless, Ph.D., C.H.M.M., R.B.P. (Soil and Materials Engineers, Inc., Plymouth, MI).

He and his team also took on the challenge posed by more than 110,000 cubic yards of fill and concrete in the 350,000 square feet of buried basements, pits, footings, foundations, and other structures that had to be removed before homes could be constructed, as well as the bedrock a dozen feet below grade that had to be dealt with.

The real challenge was logistics…and significant costs.

The initial cost estimate for preparing the site was $9-10 million, including the cost of replacing the two-foot-deep layer of cinder/ash fill that covered the 42 acres site with clean soil to facilitate ­utility installation. A typical approach to dig, haul, dispose, and replace the ­contaminated soil elevated costs and was at odds with the city’s emphasis on sustainable design and was not economically feasible.

Professional Ingenuity
With the approval of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), Dr. Harless and his team ­designed regulatory specifications for an alternative, sustainable, on-site solution. They had clean soil excavated from ­beneath the road rights-of-way (ROW) and parks and had the cinder/ash fill excavated from the residential lots. Then they had the cinder/ash fill encapsulated as inert fill beneath the pavement in roadway ROWs, and under at least two feet of landscaped, clean soil in the parks. The native soil they had removed from the ROWs and parks was then installed as a replacement for the impacted, coal-ash fill removed from residential lots.

Harless’ approach was consistent with the sustainable development goals of the project and saved over $2.5 million in response costs, making the project economically viable.

That was just the beginning. The presence of bedrock 10-12 feet below grade limited the depth of native soil excavations, presenting a mass balance and engineering challenge. There were sewer lines in road ROWs in the southern portion of the development installed at depths below the bedrock surface and through the required two-foot, native-clay barrier under the cinder/ash fill.

Because it would not be feasible to backfill around the sewers with compacted clay, Harless and his team designed a cement/bentonite grout that would be sufficiently impermeable to block migration of impacted groundwater from the cinder/ash fill, but still brittle enough to allow removal for access to the sewers to effect future repairs.

Traditional excavation methods were used to remediate remaining areas of contamination, and to remove the filled basements to allow access to contaminated media and construction of houses. Only those soils and other materials that could not be reused, recycled, or reclaimed were disposed. More than 50,000 tons of concrete and steel from the plant basements, other structures, and utilities were recycled
Cost-effective ­Solutions
The financial impact of a brownfield professional was evident. Site cleanup had to be completed before land could be transferred to the developer and homes could be built. These costs came to $6.9 ­million, which, thanks to Dr. Harless’s brownfields team, was $3.1 million less than originally estimated. Meanwhile, the project team developed a financing program to fund cleanup, based on Michigan’s Brownfield Redevelopment ­Financing Act (Public Act 381 of 1996, as amended), which provides tax increment ­financing (TIF) of brownfield redevelopment costs.

The team also ­designed a five-phase approach for redeveloping the site, which addressed issues of product absorption, generation of sufficient taxes to securely finance cleanup activities, and provide sufficient time to secure brownfield financing to bridge the gap between incurring the cleanup costs and realizing the tax increment revenues from completed homes. The project team secured a $1 million state grant and $5.5 million in federal, state and local loans.

The Result
Mason Run is a New Urbanism, ­Traditional Neighborhood Design, single-family, residential development characterized by a density of approximately eight to ten homes per acre, front porches and sidewalks, detached garages on alleys, traditional architecture reflective of the Monroe community, a mixture of home sizes and costs to foster family diversity, and community parks.

By design, the neighborhood’s network of roads, alleys, and parks, and traditional architecture, makes it seem to grow out of the adjoining, older neighborhoods. The sidewalks, front porches, and neighborhood parks foster a sense of community and encourage the types of interpersonal interactions and mutual support favored in traditional urban settings. More than ten-percent of the ­development was set aside as neighborhood parks.

Upon completion, Mason Run is expected to provide up to 500 housing units for as many as 1,600 middle-income residents, whose spending will contribute an estimated $24 million annually to the local economy, especially in the nearby downtown area and contribute to the overall economic and cultural health of the community. The completed development will have a capital value of over $90 million and generate new annual property taxes of approximately $1.5 million. The economic impact also will include new sales tax and income tax revenues for the state. During construction, Mason Run is providing steady construction employment for 10-12 years.

Mason Run is a fine example of the type of development that fits into the City of Monroe’s vision for the future – sustainable development that provides economic stimuli while enhancing quality of life. It provides sustainable reuse of 50 acres of brownfield property near the city’s urban core; parks and greenspace are created; land along the River Raisin is restored and preserved and public access is provided; new middle income housing stock is provided; the fabric of the community is preserved; land is returned to the tax rolls; and economic stimuli are provided to the nearby downtown business district.

Select A Brownfield Professional with Care
If you do not already have an experienced, proven brownfield professional you can rely on, move cautiously when it comes to selecting one, according to the Institute of Brownfield Professionals. A listing of such professionals can be found at its website: www.brownfieldpros.org.

SLDT