Economic Innovation
The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, in partnership with the Mayor’s Office of Workforce and Economic Development and Mission Bay Development Group, hosted a tour with senior leadership from the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to launch the newest park and roadway in San Francisco’s Mission Bay Redevelopment Area.
The Mission Bay Drive and Circle project is a model of innovative, sustainable design made possible by a Brownfields grant from DTSC, as part of the EPA’s Federal Stimulus funding. This project and the funding from DTSC and EPA play a key role in the growth of the Mission Bay neighborhood, which is located on 300-acres of environmentally impacted former rail yards. Mayor Edwin Lee expressed his support of “the continued partnership between the city and State and Federal agencies to help promote successful infill, reuse projects, such as the Mission Bay and Hunters Point Shipyard Redevelopment Projects.”
The Mission Bay Drive and Circle project is located just east of the I-280 freeway and Caltrain tracks connects the Mission Bay community with surrounding neighborhoods and provides San Francisco residents with direct access to the Bay, new parks and open space, and neighborhood-serving retail. The $760,000 DTSC stimulus grant jump-started the project.
"The Mission Bay project is turning a blighted area into a thriving neighborhood, with local jobs, affordable housing and open space," said Jared Blumenfeld, EPA's Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest. "This is an example of government at its best, where federal, state and local agencies collaborate with private parties to clean up contaminated properties for sustainable reuse.”
A recent tour that was held also included the newest segment of the Mission Bay Commons on 3rd Street at Mission Bay Boulevard North and South, another recently completed Mission Bay park that received a $200,000 DTSC Brownfields grant. Together, the grants helped create more than 500 construction jobs with $2.2 million in gross wages, leveraged more $16 million in private funding, and achieved 31% San Francisco resident hiring. Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Tiffany Bohee said that “these projects showcase the Redevelopment Agency’s commitment to promoting local hiring practices and providing needed parks and infrastructure to support Mission Bay, the city’s newest emerging neighborhood.”
At full build-out, Mission Bay will include more than 6,000 market-rate and affordable housing units, 41 acres of new parks, a new UCSF hospital serving women, children and cancer patients, and four million square feet of office, lab and R&D space.
Transportation Innovation
Houston has established a light rail system plan, that consists of four phases: The first phase is underground utility installation, road widening, guideway placement, and station finishes and landscaping.
There are five separate rail lines each with a timetable, starting this year and finalizing in 2014.
The approach taken is that a big development has the traction to bring growth and consisting of Mixed Use, Incentives TIRZ and DPC Tax Credit. There's a transit center incentives assessment clean up at work.
An estimated 12% of Houston’s brownfields are located in the Harrisburg Corridor, and tax delinquent properties mean low property cost. The team created six Redevelopment Zones since 2009—three in Transit Corridors. The Remediation and Development Incentives is marked by Assessments, Cleanup, Tax Abatement, Tax Credit and Demolition. All total, a $1.5 million investment translates into job creation, community need and a draw for additional investments.
The lessons that the project team learned during the course of the effort was that: New thinking was required; New tools were necessary; Internal communication was paramount; External communication just as much; and Planning and coordination were vital.
