Port's Troutdale project wins national brownfield award
By Erik Siemers, Business Journal staff writer
Business Journal staff writer
The Port of Portland’s Troutdale Reynolds Industrial Park on Wednesday won the national Phoenix Award, recognizing it as the top brownfield redevelopment project in the country.
The port took the honors alongside its partners on the project, Alcoa and FedEx Ground, during the Brownfields 2011 conference in Philadelphia.
The Phoenix Award is designed to award institutions that solve key environmental or social challenges to develop blighted and contaminated areas into productive or sustainable developments.
Port commissioners in 2004 voted to acquire the 700-acre site, a federal Superfund property that for 60 years had been home to an aluminum smelter that had been idled since 2002.
The land, the largest remaining zoned industrial property within the metro area’s urban growth boundary, had been remediated by Alcoa to industrial standards in 2006.
To redevelop the site, the port worked with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, Business Oregon and the cities of Troutdale and Fairview.
About half of the site was set aside for recreation, wetlands and natural space, including a multiuse trail stretching nearly two miles along the site’s perimeter. The remaining 366 acres are to be developed in three phases across 11 lots.
Last year, FedEx Ground became the first tenant, opening a 447,000-square-foot regional distribution hub on 77 acres, where it employs 800.
Once fully built out, the port estimates the industrial park will produce more than 3,500 jobs, equaling $141 million in personal income, $218 million in local purchases, and $46 million in state and local taxes related to those jobs.
The port has finished planning the second phase of development and is fielding inquiries from potential tenants.
The Troutdale project was among a pool of 70 award applicants. The port learned in February that it was the winner of the Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska region.
It then took top honor among a group of 10 projects nationally selected by a panel of environmental professionals, government officials and business leaders.
@ErikSiemers | esiemers@bizjournals.com | 503-219-3418
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