Quote:
Originally Posted by Yuri
These days cities like Detroit, Gary, East St. Louis have became so depopulated that many of their brownfield have became pretty much greenfield. It's crazy how people avoid them anyway. Stigma associated with them is way too strong.
|
No... Brownfields can stay contaminated for centuries or longer. The city of Detroit has been sitting on the Uniroyal Tire factory brownfield site for over 40 years, partly because the land has to be remediated before it can be developed. It is theoretically a prime piece of real estate as it is located on the city's waterfront right next to the bridge to Belle Isle Park, but no private developer can justify the cost to develop it.
The cost of remediation for the property will be well into the 10s of millions of dollars. This would be a large line item even in a city with high land values, like NYC. In a city like Detroit putting 10s of millions of dollars into remediating a piece of property is basically just charity work, since the land values don't support that investment.