St. Johns Commission Hears Brownfields Request

The sound of commercial development could fill the air where once the sound of gunfire echoed in unincorporated St. Johns County. County commissioners recently heard a request by developer SJC Acquisitions to designate a 39.6-acre site off Agricultural Center Drive a brownfield as part of a plan to put a flexible warehouse industrial space on the property.
“This is a little bit of a new type of issue for you,” said Trey Mills, an attorney with Driver, McAfee, Hawthorne and Diebenow representing the property owners, to commissioners.
Mills said the property was formerly home to a gun range, Ancient City Shooting Range, and the brownfields designation is needed to remediate the site from contamination.
“I can almost guarantee it has lead contamination in the berms,” he said. “We have a plan to sample 180 different locations on this property. They’ll look for everything, but we’re looking for lead.”
The state’s brownfields redevelopment program is designed to provide tax credits and cleanup liability for companies seeking to redevelop land that is contaminated from previous uses or is suspected of being contaminated.
Mills said the brownfields designation by the local government is the first step in the process.
“After that, I take it the state Department of Environmental Protection and the property owner enters into a brownfields site rehabilitation agreement,” he said. “It obligates the property owner to clean up any contamination that’s there. It also gives us the ability to get some state corporate income tax reimbursement for costs associated with rehabilitation.”
Mills said there is no cost to the county in any part of the brownfields redevelopment process.
Just to be certain, Commissioner Henry Dean asked senior assistant county attorney Kealey West if the county would have any possible liability if the brownfields request is approved.
“We specifically wrote into the resolution the county accepts no liability,” West said. “The liability remains with the property owner.”
Dean, whose term on the County Commission is ending, said he is familiar with brownfields redevelopment projects and cited a successful project in Atlanta on site that once housed a steel mill.
“I’m very confident as I head into the sunset that this is a very appropriate request,” he said.
Commissioners will hold a second reading of the request on Nov. 5.
