Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo today announced $1.3 million in assistance for King County, Washington to help the County develop an industrial park and create 50 jobs, under a HUD program that transforms polluted and abandoned commercial and industrial sites known as brownfields into businesses, housing and recreational developments.

Cuomo said King County will receive a $300,000 Brownfields Economic Development Initiative Grant and $1 million in Economic Development Loan Guarantees to redevelop a site that formerly served as a repository for Concrete Kiln Dust. The funds will assist Seattle Construction Services, Inc., in developing an industrial park on a 4.42 acre site.

Without the HUD grant, the cost of environmental cleanup would make the project too costly to undertake. Total project costs are estimated at $6.5 million.

The project is located within the Duwamish Industrial Corridor. The Duwamish Coalition, a 35-member group created by the County as part of its Growth Management Planning Council, ranked the industrial park site first among its nine demonstration projects.

"The assistance we're announcing today is an investment in a cleaner environment and a brighter future for King County and its people," Cuomo said. "Around the nation, we are taking polluted sites once given up for dead and bringing them back to life. They will be reborn to provide new jobs for workers today and for our children tomorrow."

"Working in partnership with neighborhood residents, businesses and other government agencies, we are proving that the best days of these brownfields are not in the past, but in the future," Cuomo added. "Brownfields can be cleaned up, they can be made safe, and they can once again become powerful engines for job creation and economic growth."

Cuomo participated from Washington, DC via television satellite in a Seattle news conference with King County Executive Ron Sims to announce the assistance to the County.

County Executive Sims said: "This grant is a very important part of our Brownfields Showcase Community Program. It will enable us to continue to clean up the SEA CON Industrial Park in the South Park neighborhood, creating family wage jobs in our community. I want to thank the Secretary for this terrific news."

Brownfields include abandoned factories and other industrial facilities, gasoline stations, oil storage facilities, dry cleaning stores, and other businesses that dealt with polluting substances.

Local officials across the country have made brownfields redevelopment a top priority. Dee Dee Corradini, President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and Mayor of Salt Lake City, said: "This HUD program is a unique effort to help cities economically revitalize and reintegrate formerly contaminated urban properties into their communities. Mayors look forward to working with HUD to implement the FY99 round of this key program."

Since 1993, the Clinton Administration has taken a series of actions to clean up and redevelop brownfields and return them to productive use, including: providing seed money to communities for revitalization; removing regulatory barriers to redevelopment; and providing a targeted tax incentive to businesses that purchase and clean up these sites.

In May 1997, Vice President Gore announced the Clinton Administration's Brownfields National Partnership, which brings together the resources of more than 20 federal agencies to address brownfields cleanup and redevelopment issues in a coordinated approach. Through the National Partnership, HUD is working closely with other federal agencies to provide communities with the financial and technical assistance necessary to revitalize brownfields.

Federal Housing Finance Board Chairman Bruce A. Morrison said that two weeks ago the Board adopted a regulation expanding the authority of Federal Home Loan Banks to make advances for economic development targeted to brownfields. "We look forward to continuing to work with HUD to bring the nation's cities together with the Federal Home Loan Banks and their community bank members to develop brownfields as productive economic assets in our urban areas," he said.

More information about brownfields redevelopment activities is available on HUD's web site or by calling 1-800-998-9999.