The vacant warehouses and former machine shops that litter the Wichita area can, and occasionally do, bloom again. But that rebirth is made harder by the fear that buyers will have to pay to clean up spilled oil, dry cleaning fluid or other pollutants.
The vacant warehouses and former machine shops that litter the Wichita area can, and occasionally do, bloom again. But that rebirth is made harder by the fear that buyers will have to pay to clean up spilled oil, dry cleaning fluid or other pollutants.
That's where the brownfields program and similar environmental initiatives come in.
Brownfields are moderately polluted sites, or sites believed to be polluted.
"Wichita is a gold mine of brownfields," said Allen Bell, the city's economic development director.
That's because, as an industrial city, Wichita has lots of soil and groundwater pollution. Wherever there were gas stations, dry cleaners or printers, there may be pollution.
The effort to help businesses identify and clean brownfields here includes several federal, state and local programs.
But government officials acknowledge that brownfields are often less attractive to developers than greenfields -- vacant sites at the edge of the city that don't require cleanup.
That preference contributes to urban sprawl. Meanwhile, large swaths of crumbling buildings and polluted land are left in the middle of the city, hurting the community, said Larry Powell, economic development director in Butler County.
"You can't allow a dilapidated property to just stay that way," he said. "Not only does it never go away, it spreads."
Environmental officials say they also want to remove the stigma from places that people assume are polluted, but really aren't.
"Often, it is perception of contamination rather than actual contamination that keeps businesses from redeveloping," said Bridget Wilson, brownfields coordinator for the state of Kansas.
Most people buying commercial land have it analyzed for pollution. Banks may require such an evaluation so they can avoid taking on the liability of pollution cleanup if they must foreclose on the land. Or banks may charge higher interest rates to offset the risk associated with the land.
The city of Wichita has mapped pollution in two areas beneath the city's center. One area, the North Industrial Corridor, runs from 37th Street North to Second Street. The other area, Gilbert and Mosley, named for an intersection south of downtown, runs from about Second Street to 31st Street South.
If a business is interested in a piece of ground in these studied areas, it can contact the city's environmental services department, which is likely to have a history of the property and can tell the potential buyer whether any of the previous owners were potential polluters, said Kay Johnson, the city's director of environmental services.
The city can give a business owner a certificate of release if the pollution is gone or can be easily dealt with.
Gander Mountain, the retail anchor for the new WaterWalk development downtown, is an example of development on contaminated land, Johnson said.
The best known example of the city's effort to redevelop a polluted area is Old Town, which is where the Gilbert and Mosley pollution started.
A more recent example is the city's economic development project along 21st Street between Amidon and Hillside. The state is funding an effort to study dozens of properties along that stretch to evaluate which ones might have significant pollution.
Wichita banks, because they are used to dealing with brownfields, are more knowledgeable about lending to businesses interested in building on polluted sites, Johnson said.
But developing a brownfield in Wichita has less inherent appeal than in places like New York or Detroit, local environmental officials acknowledge.
Land is cheap in the Wichita area and available on the city's edges. In addition, the area's highway and rail system is generally good, said David Koch, a principal of Terracon Consultants, a national firm that consults on environmental matters.
Rebuilding in Wichita does have some economic benefits for businesses, said Koch, whose firm is based in Johnson County.
"Here," he said, "it's infrastructure" -- the cost to install roads, drainage and utilities. "You can take that cost out of your development."
Obtaining government help can be easy: as simple as filling out a two-page request with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to have state workers research and inspect a site through the Brownfields Targeted Assessment program.
There are other related programs, but they either lack funding or are harder to use, Koch said.
If the state has already researched the land, developers can learn what they're dealing with and factor it into the cost of doing business.
"Developers are not averse to risk," Koch said, "but they want to know how big the problem is, draw a box around it, have a number."
City environmental officials say land purchasers ought to do a Phase I environmental inspection. That includes research on the property's past owners and neighbors to see whether any are likely to have been polluters.
If they find something, a Phase II investigation, which tests soil and ground water samples, is recommended.
There are a number of environmental contractors in Wichita who can do that work.
The extra effort and extra cost of developing a brownfield can be worth it, say some who've done it.
The American Red Cross renovated the former Bulger Cadillac dealership at 1900 E. Douglas in 2003.
The organization actually paid for some of the cleanup on the site. It was worth it, said the Red Cross' executive director, Beverly Morlan.
"We can really make things happen in the core part of this city," she said. "We're very glad we did it."
Property that has low to moderate soil and groundwater pollution, or is believed to be polluted.
The potential liability associated with contamination complicates business development, property transactions or expansion on these properties.
Source: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
