Town of East Hartford Awarded $200,000 Brownfield Grant from State Department of Economic Development

(January 19, 2016) East Hartford, CT –Mayor Marcia A. Leclerc announced today that the Town of East Hartford has been awarded a $200,000 grant from the state Department of Economic and Community Development to develop a comprehensive implementation plan for addressing environmentally-compromised properties (known as Brownfields) in the Silver Lane Corridor.

East Hartford, which was one of only six municipalities in the state to receive a grant, shared over $1 million worth of grants from DECD.  These grants provide an opportunity to move from the site-by-site approach in DECD’s existing brownfield programs to a more comprehensive area-wide approach to arriving at reuse and redevelopment strategies.  In East Hartford, the grant will be used for comprehensive planning of the Silver Lane Corridor, while identifying and studying the redevelopment potential of targeted brownfield sites. Additionally, in the coming months, as part of the grant, Mayor Leclerc is also in the process of forming a Silver Lane Corridor Study Committee.

Mayor Marcia A. Leclerc said today that this money will help assess and revitalize a crucial area in the Town of East Hartford.

“With only a small percentage of developable land in town, the Silver Lane corridor is a crucial part of our economic future,” Mayor Leclerc said. “The money from this grant can help jumpstart economic development to an area of East Hartford that offers the most transformative level of potential.”

This grant award is part of a string of Brownfield grants that the town has received over the past year. In late May 2015, East Hartford received a $200,000 Brownfield grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and was one of four communities in the state of Connecticut and 147 communities across the U.S. to share $54.3 million in EPA investment.