March 11

A Former Manufacturing Facility Redeveloped into Senior Housing

An investor acquired a contaminated manufacturing property as part of Madison, Indiana’s Riverfront Development Project along the Ohio River.

BACKGROUND

For a century, Tower Manufacturing produced nails and tacks. After manufacturing ceased, the building sat empty for two decades and began to erode. The facility covers an entire city block within a critical area of Madison’s redevelopment plans. Contamination from the manufacturing caused developers and several investigatory Brownfields grants to pass on the property. In 2018, an investor who resurrects environmentally impacted properties for redevelopment bought the property.

APPROACH

The investor contacted EnviroForensics, and we connected the investor with a local developer, Denton Floyd Real Estate Group, who purchased the property and has redeveloped the building into senior housing. EnviroForensics enrolled the site into IDEM’s Voluntary Remediation Program and conducted the requisite site investigation and remedial activities in a compressed time frame allowing the developer to meet its financing and construction schedule. In addition, EnviroForensics conducted insurance archeology to reconstruct the timeline of past industrial owners and operators who contaminated the site and are being pursued for cost recovery.

OUTCOME

The redevelopment, known as Riverside Lofts, is a senior housing project on the west end of downtown Madison. The project served as a bookend to the city’s more extensive redevelopment plans along the riverfront and was instrumental in the city being awarded the prestigious Stellar Grant.