EGLE Awards Brownfield Grant to New Saginaw High School for Pollutant Remediation

The Michigan Department of Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) is awarding a $1 million Brownfield Redevelopment Grant to support the development of a new riverfront high school campus in downtown Saginaw.

The new five-story building and athletic fields will be located at 1741 and 1930 North Niagara Street, and 211 Congress Avenue. The property had several industrial uses from at least the 1890s to the 1980s including a lumberyard, sawmill, salt block manufacturing, coal processing, and railroad spurs, leaving it contaminated. EGLE awarded approximately $90,000 in Brownfield Site Assessment funding. Those investigations found a variety of organic compounds and metals left behind by the former uses of the property. The EGLE grant will pay for the transport and disposal of contaminated soil, further assessment, and delineation of on-site contamination, monitoring subsurface conditions to ensure residual contamination does not present a risk to the future use of the property.

The redevelopment, which is already under construction, will draw more than $61 million in capital investment, with the funding coming from a bond passed by Saginaw voters in 2020. The new school will replace Saginaw High School and Arthur Hill High School, which are both in need significant repair and are being repurposed by the school district. The school district expects to add 10 new teaching positions when the new high school opens in 2024.