Somehow it seems fitting that as I pen this article, I sit on a fallen log aside a rushing, clear stream in the middle of the Porcupine Mountains backcountry along the shores of Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. This 47,000-acre wilderness state park was established in 1945 to protect the last large stand of uncut hardwood and hemlock forest remaining in the Midwest. Along the trails there remains today, historical evidence of early silver and copper mining ventures that brought fortune seekers to the area as early as the 1850s.

At first blush, it may seem incongruous that a piece focused on conservation appears in a magazine principally devoted to the redevelopment of brownfields. The issue is really one of semantics, or perhaps perception is a better word, since most of the time we “think” of brownfield redevelopment from the standpoint of bricks and mortar demolition and subsequent reconstruction. While vertical build-out often makes sense for well-worn dirt located in hot beds of urban growth or at sites with attractive nexus to key infrastructure, more economically challenged lands, especially those in more rural areas, often don’t measure up under the magnifying glass of traditional real estate economics.

Photo Credit: Kencanning/Dreamstime

Low-Value Alternatives
Let’s face it, real estate market demand can’t be created where it doesn’t exist, at least not much of the time, so these types of properties require some creative thinking to identify alternative sources of value. The article I co-authored with Kelly Novak, “Rural Surplus Properties—Resource for Alternative Redevelopment,” in the February issue of BN&SD, listed several potential sources of value on rural properties, including alternative energy opportunities from solar or wind (unaffected by the whims of the real estate market), as well as conservation or other green credits that might be available by looking more closely at the services or benefits that healthy ecosystems provide (more on this later). My colleague Ken Kastman’s article, “Greening Brownfields for Ecological Enhancement,” in the April issue, rightly points out that ecological enhancements can be a sustainable and ben eficial opportunity for those upside-down properties where environmental costs exceed the intrinsic land value (see sidebar for these alternatives).

The Sustainability Agenda
Sustainability is on the radar and on the agenda in almost every major corporation today. While the interpretation of what exactly defines sustainability varies, many companies now publish reports that track a wide variety of sustainability elements. These can include greenhouse gas emission reductions, alternative energy uses, recycled material content, green buildings, and many others. Corporations with underutilized property portfolios are quickly realizing that the regeneration of former industrial sites (think land recycling here) is an area that nicely weaves into the fabric of the corporation’s sustainability agenda. Successful regeneration of older brownfield sites preserves valuable green space from development, which in turn, allows the land to support other sustainability elements, including biodiversity, water quality and carbon sequestration.

But regenerating older sites for new redevelopment to save green space may not be enough to offset further erosion and degradation of ecosystems from the increased demands of growing populations and economies. Directly placing former corporate landholdings into conservation end-uses (Conservation Brownfields) can help increase the pace of ecosystem land inventory preservation in advance of development and provide important eco-services that can be local, regional or global in scale.

What’s in it for a Corporate Landholder?
Several sources of value are of potential interest to corporations that want to evaluate the benefits and business case for placing lands into conservation end-uses. These may include some of the following considerations:

• Improved local community and stakeholder relations—being seen as “giving back”
  
• Enhanced corporate image and reputation—being viewed as a “force for good”
  
• Differentiation from other industry competitors
  
• Providing a passive, recreational use for property that limits or lessens exposure versus more intrusive types of redevelopment
  
• Potentially raising adjacent land values that may abut the conservation area
  
• Elimination of holding costs and resources to manage non-strategic lands—internally seen as shifting resources to core business activities
  
• Potential capture of green credits or other eco-service values to be banked, traded or sold
  
• Long-term stewardship of defined end-use via third-party conservation organizations

As I’m hiking down Escarpment Trail leaving Lake of the Clouds, I can’t help applauding those who had the vision and foresight to set aside these lands with their unique ecosystems in advance of development. I pass a sign pointing out the location of the historic Cuyahoga Mine dating from 1853. Is this really a conservation area or a brownfield site? Maybe the answer to both questions is “yes.”

Chris Olson is manager of real estate for BP/Atlantic Richfield Company.

Low-Value Alternatives
(originally presented by Ken Kastman in April 2008 issue)
Support organizations can make the technical greening process easier. Some of these organizations are listed below.

• Trust for Public Land (www.tpl.org) is a non-profit with a focus on conserving land for parks, community gardens and historic sites. This organization helps to identify funding sources and sometimes purchases a property until it can be permanently protected by a government or community land trust.
  
• Project for Public Spaces (www.pps.org) is another non-profit that is dedicated to creating and sustaining public places within communities. It has served as a resource for best practices and information on its public space placemaking process.

Underutilized industrial sites can present great opportunities for wildlife and there are many organizations that specialize in this type of restoration and development.

• Wildlife Habitat Council (www.wildlifehc.org) is another alternative conservation option. This organization facilitates the restoration of hundreds of surplus industrial properties to green space.
  
• Ducks Unlimited (www.ducks.org) is also active in wetland and ecological restoration projects.