Student Corner: Charlotte’s ReVenture Park: Sustainability-Focused Industrial Redevelopment

Located on the western edge of Charlotte, ReVenture Park is an underutilized 667-acre industrially zoned area currently being redeveloped by a team led by Forsite Development. The long-term vision sees the site – once occupied by a textile dyeing operation – turned to a thriving hub for renewable energy projects, with ~600 acres of adjacent residential and mixed-use commercial development. Totaling nearly 1,300 acres, the heroic ReVenture Park project will serve as a case study for creative, sustainability-focused Brownfield and Superfund redevelopments throughout the United States. Contamination Lingo: Superfund Status Contamination is a key consideration many redevelopments face during a project’s lifecycle. Developers are often able to take advantage of incentives related to the productive redevelopment of contaminated sites. The CED in NC blog has featured a number of articles related to sites designated as Brownfields, which the EPA defines as contaminated sites where state and local organizations are involved in the clean-up and revitalization(see “Primer on Brownfields Redevelopment”, “How to Use Federal and State Brownfields Programs to Accomplish a Community Revitalization Project” and “Brownfields Programs as a Revitalization Tool: NC Case Studies”). ReVenture is not only a designated Brownfields site, but was included on the Superfund National Priorities List, designating the site as a top federal and national priority for the EnvironmentalProtection Agency. The Superfund designation indicates that the federal government is or plans to be involved in the clean-up effort, and is typically denotive of the highest level of complexity related to remediation. ReVenture History ReVenture Park was home to textile dyeing operations dating back to 1935, which [...]