When thousands of fans jam the American Airlines Center at Victory Park, they probably don’t think about old power plants that have long since gone dim. Likewise, visitors who shop and dine at the park aren’t likely to ponder over the fate of long-forgotten landfills. The more than 100 Dallas elementary school students who descended on Victory Park for the 2007 Earth Day celebration on April 19 probably didn’t care about any of these historical footnotes either.

And that’s just fine with Richard Greene, who heads up the Environmental Protection Agency’s regional office in Dallas. EPA worked with the state, City of Dallas, Hillwood Development Corporation, and Hicks Holding for more than a decade to transform Victory Park’s environmentally-challenged past into a thriving, green future.  

“It is one of our most outstanding achievements in brownfield redevelopment, and the largest EPA brownfield project in the country,” said Greene. The celebration also included the unveiling of the Brownfields Commemorative Plaque for Victory Park.

Photo Credit:Karen Peycke, EPA Region 6

Dallas school kids descend on Victory Park for the 2007 Earth Day celebration on April 19.

Victory Park, the $3 billion development on a site located just north of downtown Dallas, has given new life to a former brownfield legacy. Previous uses of the site included an electric power generating plant and associated cooling ponds, garbage crematorium, railroad maintenance facility, packinghouse, and landfill for debris from a devastating fire in downtown Dallas. In addition to underground and aboveground storage tanks, the site’s past uses left it contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons, metals, solvents, asbestos, pesticides, and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons. While no toxic hazardous wastes were identified, contamination in both soil and groundwater permeated over approximately 70 percent of the property.

Environmental assessment, monitoring and cleanup of the majority of the 75-acre property occurred between 1998 and 2000, at a cost of approximately $12 million. To address environmental concerns, 32 individual parcels were entered into the Texas Voluntary Cleanup Program (VCP). Developers utilized risk-based cleanup principles and eventually received VCP Certificates of Completion for each parcel. A comprehensive soil management plan was developed, which led to the excavation and disposal of 310,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and the reuse of another 250,000 cubic yards of soil. Across the property, 45 structures were demolished and 26 miles of underground utilities were excavated and reworked. In addition, approximately 15 million gallons of groundwater were treated and 47,000 cubic yards of concrete recycled. To support the property’s eventual use as a centerpiece within an even larger, multi-use, urban community redevelopment project, more than 700 trees were planted.

The anchor of this site is the American Airlines Center, an 840,000-square-foot indoor sports/ entertainment complex constructed on 11.6 acres which had contained the cooling ponds of the electric power generating plant. With the completion of the center in 2001, and the 33-story W Dallas Hotel and Residence in 2006, Victory Park is well on its way to realizing the vibrant and innovative urban district envisioned in its master-planned development. This multi-billion-dollar redevelopment is expected to generate $1 billion annually and create 11,000 jobs by 2009.

Sam Coleman is director, Superfund Division, US EPA Region 6