On May 31, 2017, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded two brownfield cleanup grants totaling $400,000 to the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi for remediation of the former Kuhn Memorial Hospital site.
The 12.8 acre site in the Martin Luther King Jr. District has contributed blight to the city for over ten years. The property has exchanged hands via tax deed sale six times and city officials have been unsuccessful in requiring the owner to renovate or demolish the site.
PPM Consultants has maintained a long relationship with the city of Vicksburg and helped it win grant funding to assess environmental concerns at the former Kuhn Memorial hospital in 2016. PPM completed a Phase I environmental site assessment (ESA) in less than 30 days to allow the city to take ownership of the property. Since then, PPM has completed all necessary environmental assessments, including two Phase II ESAs, an asbestos investigation and two Analysis of Brownfield Cleanup Alternatives reports.
This spring, PPM was able to once again help the city secure funding, this time to remediate the affected site. In addition to securing $400,000 in brownfield cleanup grant funding, PPM worked with the Mississippi Development Authority (MDA) to secure pre-approval of up to $500,000 in leveraged funding using the MDA’s Capital Improvement Revolving Loan Program (CAP loan). This is the first time the CAP loan will ever be used for a brownfield project in Mississippi.
Trey Hess, director of brownfields and economic development at PPM Consultants, said “PPM’s knowledge of the state and federal financial incentives available for brownfield redevelopment is unparalleled, and the Kuhn Memorial Hospital project is a testament to that fact.”
The City of Vicksburg plans to convert the property into an affordable housing development. This project is scheduled for completion in 2018-2019.