CLEVELAND, Ohio – Cleveland City Council has approved spending $3.5 million in COVID-19 stimulus money cleaning up former industrial sites along Opportunity Corridor.
Monday afternoon, legislation appropriating $3.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds passed the Finance, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, before passing full council. The $3.5 million in ARPA money will be used as a 1-1 match for an additional $3.5 million from JobsOhio’s Ohio Site Inventory Program grants, according to city documents.
Known as “brownfields,” many former industrial or commercial sites throughout Cleveland suffer from environmental contamination and need to be cleaned up before new companies break ground.
Overall, the city is hoping the money will rehabilitate two or three brownfield sites that span at least 10 acres throughout Opportunity Corridor. It’s unclear which sites would receive remediation.
The point of the program is to make new sites “shovel-ready” rather than accelerating projects that are already in progress, said Tessa Jackson, Cleveland’s Director of Development.
Thus far, JobsOhio has already offered Cleveland a $2 million grant through the Ohio Site Inventory Program, but the city is setting aside $1.5 million because it expects JobsOhio to approve an additional matching grant of that amount, according to city documents.
This legislation is far from the first proposal seeking to use one-time ARPA dollars to remediate brownfields throughout Northeast Ohio. In late 2022, Cuyahoga County approved spending $5 million in ARPA dollars to help remediate 18 brownfields. Last week, Cleveland City Council approved spending $10 million in ARPA money to help train workers in specialized fields such as brownfield remediation.
Spending the ARPA dollars to bolster Opportunity Corridor also seeks to double-down on the $257 million infrastructure project that fully launched in late 2021. While the city has already identified sites along the corridor in need of remediation, many sites still remain empty along the three-mile road.
“If we don’t redevelop these sites, nothing will ever happen,” Councilman Mike Polensek said during the finance committee meeting. “They’ll sit there until the second coming.”
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