Cherrytree Group LLC Blog

...by Warren Kirshenbaum

The Cherrytree Group has developed a streamlined procedure for getting their clients Brownfields Tax Credits. What is the Brownfields Tax Credit? Massachusetts General Laws forces developers or owners of a site that has environmental contamination to clean up that site. The law holds the current owner responsible for the cleanup costs.

However, if the issues were caused previous to your ownership, Brownfields Act absolves you the owner of the property, of the liability for cleanup, and gives you a tax credit of up to 50% of the eligible costs of cleaning up the site. What you do with the credits is up to you, take the credits on next years taxes, or monetize those credits by selling them for cash to a buyer.

Why use The Cherrytree Group?

We are able to sift through the all of the information, determine which costs are eligible for the credit and prepare and file the application to the DOR. There are three functions to applying for these credits:

1. securing tax credits
2. brokering the sale of the tax credits
3. closing on a tax credit purchase

The Cherrytree Group can perform all 3 of these functions. The benefit here is that the costs to the client is significantly less when we provide those services than if separate professionals were retained for each service.

By using The Cherrytree Group, you employ an accounting professional to work on analyzing the eligible costs, a legal professional to close on the tax credit purchase, and a developer to assist with, and advise on the cost and development issues.

The Cherrytree Group acts as a consultant and a syndicator, applying for and obtaining the Brownfield Tax Credit for you. We can also sell that tax credit for cash.  Please contact us.

...by Warren Kirshenbaum

As part of $3.5 million in Brownfields grants that EPA is making available for Massachusetts communities, EPA has provided $600,000 for Somerville to clean up the former Kiley Barrel Property site. The funding is part of more than $76 million in EPA Brownfields investments across the country announced this week by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to protect health and the environment, create jobs and promote economic re-development in American communities.

EPA Brownfields grant money assists work to reclaim sites including old textile mills, sites containing hazardous substances and petroleum products and other abandoned industrial and commercial properties.  EPA’s Brownfields program encourages redevelopment of America’s estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites.

 “This EPA funding will help strengthen the economic foundation of these communities,” said Curt Spalding, regional administrator of EPA New England’s office. “Cleaning and revitalizing contaminated sites helps create jobs, providing a solid foundation for a community to create new businesses and neighborhood centers, while making our environment cleaner and the community healthier.”

"These federal funds will help transform the Kiley Barrel site, eliminating old contaminants and revitalizing it so that the land can be used for future development. Brownfields grants have had a tremendous impact here in Somerville and all over the country, giving communities the resources they need to revitalize old industrial sites," stated Congressman Michael Capuano.

The $12.55 million in grant and Revolving Loan Fund money awarded by EPA to a variety of New England communities and organization will provide substantial help around the region.  The EPA funding leverages over $46 million of other money to pursue brownfields cleanup and revitalization work. In New England, these projects have created 98 clean up jobs this year as well as 135 redevelopment jobs.

As of June 2011, EPA’s brownfields assistance has leveraged more than $16.3 billion in cleanup and redevelopment funding, and helped create more than 70,000 jobs in cleanup, construction and redevelopment. These investments and jobs target local, under-served and economically disadvantaged neighborhoods – places where environmental cleanups and new jobs are most needed.

Since the beginning of the Brownfields Program, in New England alone EPA has awarded 268 assessment grants totaling $67.1 million, 61 revolving loan fund grants and supplemental funding totaling $65 million and 174 cleanup grants totaling $39.3 million.  These grant funds have paved the way for more than $1.3 billion in public and private cleanup and redevelopment investment and for 8815 jobs in assessment, cleanup, construction and redevelopment.

Some of the money announced today falls under EPA’s brownfields revolving loan funding.  Since 1995, EPA RLF recipients have provided 53 loans and 63 grants in New England totaling more than $29 million for brownfields cleanup. The loan funds have paved the way for more than $189 million in public and private cleanup and redevelopment investment and for 1034 jobs in cleanup, construction and redevelopment.

Information released by the EPA 

by...Warren Kirshenbaum

On an island where the Mill River flows through New Haven sits English Station, a defunct electric power plant once teeming with contaminants.

The 9-acre plant embodies every municipality’s struggle with sites known as Brownfields, abandoned plots where commercial and industrial businesses once operated, mostly at a time when environmental laws were less stringent. Throughout New Haven County, urban and suburban areas alike are grappling with the costly process of reclaiming these eyesores, cleaning up the environmental and health hazards lurking there and finding new uses for the parcels.

English Station is one of 27 Brownfields on a list that cities and towns in Greater New Haven identified to the Connecticut Brownfields Redevelopment Authority as priority sites for reuse. Many are situated near major routes, highways and existing commercial hubs. Some are more isolated.

“It’s really a positive to be on the list because it attracts developers,” said Cynthia Petruzzello, vice president and redevelopment project manager for CBRA.

English Station was once owned by United Illuminating Co. and burned coal and oil from the 1880s until it was decommissioned in 1992. In 2000, UI paid Killingworth-based Quinnipiac Energy $4.25 million to take the plant off its hands.

Quinnipiac Energy set up a $1.9 million fund for remediation but that money has been spent.

The current owner, Evergreen Power, last summer was in talks to sell the plant to First National Development of Bridgeport. At the time, developer Garfield Spencer said his vision for the property was a mixed-use development with 200 rental units, boat slips and street-level retail space.

Spencer did not return a phone call and email seeking comment for this story and land records in the city clerk’s office show no sale has been made.

CBRA is a division of the Connecticut Development Authority. CDA President Marie O’Brien said CBRA is a starting point for entities interested in brownfield reuse projects and works on them with the state departments of Economic and Community Development, Environmental Protection and Public Health.

New Haven Economic Development Director Kelly Murphy said urban centers typically have numerous brownfield sites. Even a dry cleaning business that closes down would be considered a brownfield because of possible chemical contamination.

“The laws of brownfields have changed even since I started my career,” she said.

Robert Bell, assistant director of the state Department of Environmental Protection’s Remediation Division, said the state has 10 to 15 different laws that address the cleanup of hazardous materials.

“Not all contamination is equal,” Bell said, adding that some material stays where it is, other hazards can travel, especially if they leach into groundwater, but others might cause little to no public health risk.

Original article and a list of the Brownfields sites in the Greater New Haven Area can be found at The Register Citizen
By ANGELA CARTER