Lancaster council hears plan to fund Phase II environmental assessment to ready former SPR site for redevelopment

Lancaster city officials were briefed on plans to move forward with a Phase II environmental site assessment of a former SPR redevelopment parcel that a court has ordered transferred to the city, a necessary step before cleanup or redevelopment.

The council heard from a regional Brownfields representative, who said the Phase II assessment — field sampling to determine what contaminants, if any, remain in soil and groundwater — is the next step once the property is legally transferred. “The Phase Two is what will be done here on this property,” the representative said, adding that crews “actually go on the site and you take soil samples and you figure out what's there.”

The presentation recounted the property's legal history: the city filed a breach-of-contract suit in 2014 after the prior owner failed to remediate environmental issues; a court order directing transfer of the property to the city was cited as the gating event allowing city-led assessment and cleanup efforts. Council staff said the city can only execute access agreements and apply for certain grants once the transfer is complete.

The Brownfields representative outlined funding and cost considerations. Council was told the immediate next step would be to reserve roughly $9,000 to begin site characterization work, while comparable Phase II investigations in the region have previously run approximately $85,000. The presenter pointed to multiple possible funding streams — state assessment grants, available federal infrastructure assessment dollars, and EPA Brownfields grants — and said the current moment offers more state and federal capital for assessments than in past years.

The presenter also warned of a procedural constraint: because the city already owns a portion of the parcel used for emergency-response facilities, certain voluntary cleanup contract pathways may not be available for the remainder of the site until transfer and access agreements are finalized. He said the goal is to characterize the property sufficiently to make it marketable for developers and to reduce the city's liability.

Council did not take a final vote on remediation or on committing the larger assessment budget at the meeting. Council and staff were directed to continue coordinating the property transfer, access agreements and grant applications, and the City Development Corporation plans to consider related nominations and redevelopment strategy at its March 17 meeting.

The presentation was intended to inform next steps rather than authorize immediate cleanup spending; council members signaled support for pursuing assessment and funding but did not adopt a formal remediation contract at this session.