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The Bayshore/Gateway Triangle Community Redevelopment Agency’s latest land purchase isn’t exactly ready to be revamped.

Instead, the lot at 4315 Bayshore Drive, which is adjacent to the agency’s 17-acre property off Bayshore Drive, is now in the preliminary stage of getting a Brownfield designation.

Brownfields are tracts of land that have been developed for industrial purposes, polluted and then abandoned.

“The thing with Brownfield is you have to be patient,” said Sue Trone, operation analyst for the redevelopment agency, or CRA. “It’s kind of a slower process.”

Getting the designation would allow the agency to qualify for both federal and state grants to rehabilitate and redevelop the property— without having to dip into an already tight budget.

“It used to be there were punitive approaches to cleaning up environmental contamination,” said Trone. “In the last 15 years it has turned to incentive-based cleanup.”

Properties that are also perceived to have been polluted are considered Brownfield until they are cleared. That was the case with the property at the northeast corner of Bayshore Drive and Jeepers Drive.

The CRA paid $750,000 for the former site of Hubert’s Welding & Repair Facility, which was listed in the Florida Department of Environmental Protection storage tank report as having three underground storage tanks. To help with any possible remediation, $100,000 of the selling price was placed in escrow.

The Bayshore/ Gateway Triangle CRA’s latest move is part of a national trend to rehabilitate polluted property that had been written off as not viable.

Created in 1995 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Brownfield and Land Revitalization program was started to help Rust Belt communities jump start revitalization. Since its inception, the program has expanded across the country with state’s creating programs of their own.

Florida established the Florida Brownfield Redevelopment Act in 1997.

“It (Brownfield redevelopment) has been very successful in the state of Florida,” said Roger Register, president of the Florida Brownfield Association.

According to the Florida Brownfield Association, there are more than 150 designated Brownfield Areas in the state.

Cities where projects have succeeded include North Miami Beach, where the city turned a former landfill into an upscale retail mall, and Clearwater, where a derelict gas station site was turned into the Willa Carson Community Health Resource Center,

CRA Executive Director Dave Jackson called the new Bayshore Drive property a key component of the redevelopment area’s revival.

“It’s a key acquisition piece and it will enhance the 17-acre site,” said Jackson. “Moving into the future, you have to help clean up the past. It all ties (together).”

CRA Advisory Board member Maurice Gutierrez, agreed, adding that cleaning up the site would continue the neighborhood’s progress.

“I feel it brings back to the community that which it is lacking,” said Gutierrez in an interview, adding that the CRA’s investment and having the property go through Brownfield process would pay-off in the long-run. “Now it (the area) is coming to life.”

For more information about the CRA visit www.colliercra.com or call 643-1115.