Location: Massena, NY | Client: St. Lawrence County, New York | Project Date: August 2015 – July 2017
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Project Description
Situation
At the height of production, the 270-acre General Motors (GM) Massena Plant once provided roughly 2000 jobs for rural upstate New York. Although placed on the National Priorities List in 1983, the site continued operations during ongoing remediation until June 2009, when GM closed the plant due to the company bankruptcy proceedings. The local community and the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe are eager to identify a future use for the site that will replace the jobs and tax base lost with the plant closure. EPA has been working with the GM Messena Redevelopment Task Force for several years to balance multiple local and tribal government stakeholder goals and divergent reuse interests, and to identify potential redevelopment opportunities.
Solution
Funded by EPA, Skeo Solutions facilitated discussions among EPA Region 2, Motors Liquidation Company and the local Task Force to develop a reuse framework for the site. The reuse framework outlines several redevelopment scenarios for the site based on regional market opportunities. Based on the site’s cleanup status, the framework includes a phased approach to redevelopment that identifies immediate development opportunities for portions of the site. As part of the reuse planning process, Skeo convened an economic sectors roundtable, assembling a panel of experts to share successes in developing forest products, technology innovation, supply chain cluster development and tourism sectors.
Outcome
The project provided EPA with a set of tools and a process for coordinating cleanup activities with the redevelopment goals of a broad range of stakeholders. The site owner and the Task Force now have a redevelopment framework for the site that:
- Offers a set of redevelopment scenarios that can inform further market research.
- Identifies approximately 70 acres that can be returned to use in the near-term.
- Targets emerging industry sectors based on specific site and regional assets.