Massachusetts, as part of its Community One Stop for Growth program, awarded the City of Worcester and Worcester Business Development Corp. a combined $1.75 million toward the redevelopment of former factory buildings which are part of Saint-Gobain’s Worcester site.
The $1.5 million grant awarded to the City of Worcester from the MassWorks Infrastructure Program will be used to demolish 10 vacant industrial buildings for redevelopment, as part of the City and WBDC’s Greendale Revitalization Initiative. The project will create multiple pad-ready sites for redevelopment with the potential to accommodate 1 million square feet of manufacturing space and create an estimated 1,000 jobs, according to the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development website.
“This a smart growth and sustainable development initiative because it seeks to repurpose already developed, underutilized brownfields properties to support future growth and development, rather than the developing greenspace,” said Worcester’s Chief Development Officer Peter Dunn in an email to WBJ.
New Garden Park Inc., a nonprofit organization and subsidiary of WBDC, received $252,000 for the design, engineering, and permitting required to convert a private road on the site into a public road.
Community One Stop for Growth delivers funding from 12 state economic development programs. The fiscal 2023 round of funding provided $143 million in grants, including $100 million from MassWorks, according to a press release from the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development.
