IN THE NEWS
Cellar
rents to fine wine connoisseurs
Business,
wine it stores get finer with age
Self-storage
business set for ex-Reichhold site
MICHAEL P. McCONNELL, Staff writer
May
11, 2000
Ferndale
businessmen Joel Garrett and Dave Leonard break ground for a new business to
open on the city's old Reichhold Chemical site.
Daily
Tribune staff photo by Dick Hunt
FERNDALE
-
A portion of land that was contaminated with toxins from Reichhold Chemical is
now the site for a planned storage business.
Two
city businessmen broke ground Wednesday on what they say will be more than
100,000 square feet of self storage on Bermuda Street north of Woodward Heights.
And
they are building it on land that was once heavily polluted at the former site
of the chemical company.
"It
will be totally safe," said Dave Leonard, who is developing the project
with partner Joel Garrett through their Woodward Heights Commerce Center
company.
Construction
on the first phase of the project will finish up in September. The second half
is set for completion later next year, Leonard said.
The
Grand Central Self Storage business, together with a former Reichhold office
building the pair renovated two years ago and now rent out, will occupy seven
acres on the north side of Woodward Heights.
Leonard
said about a third of the 15,000-square-foot office building has been rented.
Tenants are comfortable renting there, he added.
"We
tell them right out what the site is and what used to be there," Leonard
said. "Once we explain (the cleanup), they see there isn't a threat."
Headquartered
in Durham, N.C., Reichhold Chemical opened a plant in Ferndale in the 1920s to
supply paint to the auto industry. Eventually, the plant occupied almost a dozen
acres. By 1983, the company began to phase out its operations and the plant
closed six years later.
But
chemical toxins from decades of operations had seeped into the soil, and even
the ground water 14 feet below the topsoil.
The
city eight years ago worked to get the site noticed by the state's former
Department of Natural Resources, now the Michigan Department of Environmental
Quality.
Reichhold
officials promised to clean the site up and have since spent million of dollars
on the effort.
Acres
of contaminated topsoil were removed and the site was sealed with more than a
foot of concrete. Three feet of clay and topsoil now cap the cement and grass
grows on top.
A
slurry wall was built around the entire site to contain any pollutants from
spreading.
The
cleanup began in 1995. The only contaminants left at the site are in the ground
water, which continues to be pumped and treated at the site.
Leonard,
who sat with neighbors on a site-study committee of city and county officials,
said the ground water treatment should be completed in 2-5 years.
"That
land is sealed pretty tight," he said.
City
Manager Tom Barwin said that reusing the contaminated property for active
business shows such sites can be reclaimed for economic development.
"The
self-storage business will add to the city tax base and provide a service to the
area," Barwin said.
Mayor
Charles Goedert, who helped spearhead the call for a cleanup as a councilman
eight years ago, said Leonard and Garrett's development efforts have received
Plan Commission approval thus far.
"It
is progress in the right direction," Goedert said. "It is a productive
use of the site that will not impose on the surrounding neighborhoods with
adverse environmental consequences."
Staff writer Michael P. McConnell can be reached via e-mail at mike.mcconnell@dailytribune.com or by phone at 591-2571.