A review of the second Washington Brownfields Conference in Tacoma and the debut of a new approach to Brownfields redevelopment
This year’s Washington Brownfield Conference, Brownfields Redevelopment: Building Sustainable Communities, held October 14 in Tacoma, followed a different approach to discuss the concepts of Brownfields redevelopment to a wider audience. Despite the economic downturn and higher cost of registration, there were more than 300 attendees. Last year, the first Washington Brownfield Conference attracted about 400 attendees.
The day before the conference, the City of Tacoma, in cooperation with several stakeholders from government and academia, held a press event to announce the Evergreen Tacoma Initiative, a new way to address complex Brownfields redevelopment. This is noted following the report on the conference.
Washington Brownfields Conference – Brownfields Redevelopment: Building Sustainable Communities
The second Washington Brownfields conference was held in Tacoma October 14. At the first planning meeting, the diverse group of Brownfields professionals in attendance, led by the Northwest Environmental Business Council (NEBC), decided on a different format than usual for the conference. Instead of sessions or tracks that would attract only single discipline attendees- technical, financial, regulatory, etc- the planners created interdisciplinary sessions with an array of Brownfields professionals discussing various aspects of the redevelopment process. The rationale for this approach was that successful Brownfields redevelopment projects involve team efforts; geologists, bankers, attorneys and others. Thus, the focus of the conference shifted from the traditional issues of cleanup, financing or other discrete facets to integrated discussions of real estate transactions and development.
In addition to creating a more realistic educational experience for attendees, conference planners hoped that this interdisciplinary approach would attract a more diverse audience including developers, financiers and property owners- and thus create a “community of practice.”
The NEBC and conference planners used several methods to reach out to this diverse audience. The planning committee itself represented a wide variety of disciplines. In promoting the conference, the NEBC partnered with other trade associations and committees, increasing the range of communications to those outside traditional groups connected with Brownfields. The keynote speaker was from Vulcan, Inc., a well-known Seattle real estate development firm, thus giving prominent attention on the conference agenda to that industry.
According to the NEBC’s post-conference analysis, the meeting met all its goals. Although as expected, attendees were primarily from the government and technical/consulting sectors, there were representatives from cities in Washington and a few in Oregon, as well as more developers/financiers/property owners than usual. The latter group comprised 11% of the attendees, higher than the previous year. Conference planners agree it is a continuing challenge to attract these types of Brownfields industry players to such events.
The conference program and the presentations given can be viewed here. For more information about the conference, contact:
Sue Moir, Program Manager
Northwest Environmental Business Council
503-227-6361
sue@nebc.org
Evergreen Tacoma Initiative
The day before the conference, the City of Tacoma, the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, Washington State Department of Ecology and the University of Washington Tacoma held a joint news conference to announce and explain a proposed national model called the Evergreen Tacoma Initiative. From the press release:
“The Evergreen Tacoma Initiative takes a systematic approach to environmental cleanup by considering an entire area affected by soil and groundwater pollution, rather than by tackling the problem one parcel at a time. A team of representatives from state, county and local governments, private property owners, environmental consultants and other business professionals as well as non-profit organizations will work together to identify the system-wide sources of contamination and develop a cleanup and sustainable re-use plan to prevent re-contamination and enable reinvestment. This initiative will also help to protect Puget Sound.”
The website for the Initiative can be found here.
