Excerpt from the Commercial Dispatch, November 21, 2019. Read full article here.
by Slim Smith
Tuesday and Wednesday, Greenfield Multistate Trust and Environmental Protection Agency officials invited residents to review concepts for the redevelopment of the former Kerr-McGee site in north Columbus.
In three sessions, residents could review three conceptual maps on display in the Multistate Trust's community resource center on 14th Avenue North.
One concept was devoted heavily to open public spaces, another emphasized residential/industrial use and the third focus on a "town center concept."
Bob Barber, partner with Orion Planning+Design, the company hired by the Trust to plan and market the site, was adamant to note what the public was viewing was not a matter of picking one of the three concepts on display.
"It will probably be a combination of elements from all three of these concepts," Barber said.
Perhaps the best way to think of it is to think of ordering food at a restaurant, he said. The concepts are menu items 1, 2 and 3, but it's most likely that the final results of redevelopment will be more like ordering a la cart.
"We will synthesize the feedback we're getting from the residents, then get with our client, which is the Greenfield Environmental Trust and consult with them," Barber said. "The next step will be to go ahead and generate a redevelopment plan itself. I'm reluctant to call it a plan. It's not a single plan because there's not necessarily a single solution. The plan won't be static. It will be a spectrum of what you see here today."
The Greenfield Trust is using $68 million from a federal court settlement to clean up creosote at the former Kerr-McGee site and stage the property for private redevelopment. Kerr-McGee and its successor, Tronox, used creosote to treat the railroad cross ties produced at the plant from 1928-2003. Creosote is a chemical used to preserve wood that, according to the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, can cause skin and eye irritation, stomach pains, liver or kidney problems and possibly cancer.