City: Parking Lot is Temp Fix After State Grant Funds Delayed

The awarding of a $ approved by the state in 2011 to clean up a former North End of Middletown gas station is delayed until it receives approval from one of Connecticut's regional planning agencies, according to the planning director.

On Dec. 1, 2011, the city was awarded the grant for property acquisition and remediation of the lot once occupied by Steve's Auto Body at the corner of Grand and Main streets for use by the Community Health Center, whose new building opened across Grand Street last May.

The structure was demolished last April, said city director of planning Bill Warner, "because buildings always turn into problems with people breaking in." In anticipation of receiving the grant funds, Warner said, the city approved a loan from the general fund. But then the state Department of Economic and Community Development informed Warner the project needed a sponsor first.

"After we received the grant, the state determined it had to be run through the Lower Connecticut River Council of Governments regional organization."

The state officially merged the eight towns of the Midstate Regional Planning Agency with the nine towns of the Connecticut River Estuary Regional Planning Agency last April, creating the River COG, one of 14 regional planning organizations representing the state's 169 towns.

As a temporary measure, Warner said, the city's parking authority roughly paved over the lot, then set up signs and parking meters to get some use out of the property. 

"People were parking all over it anyway," Warner said. 

Initial plans were that the Community Health Center would build administrative offices on the spot, allowing staff to vacate the upper level of 630 Main Street, the former dental office building, and move operations to one central North End location.

It's not clear if that will move forward, Warner said, however, "we will put a building up whether it's through the Community Health Center or not." 

The next step for remediation on the lot is Phase III Environmental and pulling out the gas tanks, Warner said. "We know the soil is contaminated."

 is for the razing and the cleanup, which includes work already done — shipping the scrapped building materials, including polychlorinated biphenyl and asbestos, "out of state to a landfill in Ohio or some other midwestern state," Warner said last April.

It is a brownfield site as identified by the city's Downtown Gateway Study. The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection conducted testing at the site and discovered a large amount of gasoline in the soil and groundwater.

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