Lynn awarded $100K Brownfields grant

December 5, 2023 : The Daily Item, James Jennings

LYNN — The city of Lynn is getting $100,000 to help rehabilitate the Lynn Multiservice Center.

The grant comes from the Brownfields Redevelopment Fund, a program in the One Stop and administered by MassDevelopment.

The grant program aims to help transform vacant, abandoned, or underused industrial or commercial properties by financing the environmental assessment and remediation of brownfield sites throughout Massachusetts.

The grant, announced at a Tuesday ceremony at City Hall, will cover the cost for the city to assess hazardous building materials, underground storage tanks, and buried construction building debris at the building located at 100 Willow St.

“This project will make it possible for the rehabilitation of the building and the long-term protection of the community services it provides,” MassDevelopment President and CEO Dan Rivera said.

Mayor Jared Nicholson said that the Brownfields grants help communities address long-standing environmental problems.

“It’s a recognition that it’s a problem,” Nicholson said. “It’s not a problem that people here created, but it’s a problem that people here live with every day.”

He added that he was grateful for the support of MassDevelopment in protecting the health and safety of the community and “opening up possibilities for a better community, for a stronger community, a community that rights the wrongs of the past in a way that creates opportunities for us to continue to right the wrongs of the present and keep this community moving forward.”

Lynn was one of eight communities receiving grants Tuesday.

Rivera said that all eight projects are really important to developing more housing and more commercial space.

“This money allows those projects that otherwise would not be moving forward to get a clean bill of environmental health,” Rivera said. “It allows it to become a productive piece of property.”

Local legislators expressed their appreciation for the grant funding.

State Rep. Pete Capano (D-Lynn) said that, without the help, there was no way for the city to tackle contamination and environmental concerns.

“A lot of the development that’s happened in Lynn wouldn’t have been done without help from the Brownfields issuing money from the state,” Capano said.

State Rep. Dan Cahill (D-Lynn) thanked Rivera, who previously served as Lawrence’s mayor, for supporting MassDevelopment.

“We’re very grateful for your experience, and you understand the difficulties for many of us on the local levels,” Cahill said. “These may be small issues to some, but they’re huge issues to our local officials.”