FAIRFIELD ECOLOGICAL INDUSTRIAL PARK
Baltimore, Maryland
Managing Entity: Baltimore Development Corporation
Contact Person' s Name : Michael J. Palumbo
Address : 36 S. Charles Street 16th Floor, Baltimore, MD
21201
Phone: (410) 837-9310 ext. 341 Fax : (410)
837-6363 E-mail : MJPIII@aol.com
Alternate Contact Person : Larisa Salamacha
Phone : (410) 837-9310 ext. 340 Fax :
(410) 837-6363 E-mail: N/A
EIP's key features.
- More than 1300 acres zoned for heavy industrial development. Approximately,
60 businesses already operate within the ecological industrial park's primary
boundary.
- Represents the only Empowerment Zone City grantee with a designed ecological
industrial park.
- Pursuing a process to redefine the area's regulatory framework through
EPA Project XL for Communities.
- Inter-modal transportation opportunities and mass transit commuting
options which are intimately tied to economy redevelopment.
- Establishing business information networks within the park to expand
collaborative efforts and material reuse opportunities.
- Playing a more active role in identifying industry education and training
skill requirements and in establishing or coordinating linkages with training
providers.
- Provides the State of Maryland to model a new voluntary compliance
approach to Brownfields redevelopment.
- Completing a master planning exercise which will produce site ownership
and environmental quality matrices, electric and natural gas line grids,
inter-modal transportation and commuter alternatives, and infrastructure
suggestions and priorities tied to promoting sustainable business practices.
What constitutes success?
- Demonstrate that environmentally motivated business networking leads
to greater productive efficiency by lowering direct and indirect operational
costs, while improving the cross-media environmental conditions of the
site
- Preserve critical areas and decrease cross-media emissions and environmental
impacts, improving the quality of living for neighboring residents.
- Create 2500 new jobs with above average wage scales over the next 5-10
years.
EIP linkages.
Hold multi-stakeholder contact and conferences, for example, to
consider detailed input/output information for consideration in a material
reuse exchange. Explore connections to targeted waste exchanges and to recruit
potential environmentally technology oriented firms which may be able to
use the existing waste streams and/or provides the raw material feedstock.
We also are exploring the possibility of joint treatment facilities to improve
the economics of scale related to these types of investments.
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Recruiting process.
The recruitment and redevelopment strategy for fairfield provides
a unique focus and allows for considerably more opportunities to leverage
Stage and Federal funds than more traditional development approaches. In
addition to the obvious benefits associated with the Empowerment Zone, The
Ecological Industrial Park targets its recruitment toward three specific
company types. As a complement to the recruitment plan BDC also had instituted
an active existing business expansion and infrastructure improvement program.
It is this combination of approaches that truly delineates the Eco-Industrial
Park concept. The types of businesses being recruited or targeted for expansion
include:
- Clean Manufacturing or Commercial Uses Which Practice Environmental
Responsibility and Leaderdship:
- 3 significant size companies (350-500 employees) to expand the industrial/commercial
base of the area.
- Environmental Technology Providers: 8-10 environmental technology providers
(50-100) employees) to expand the pollution prevention, business networking,
and closed loop capabilities associated with the Eco-park.
- "The Multipliers" or Service and Other Environmental/Recycling
Companies: 10+ small service oriented company's (10-50 employees) to fill
in strategic needs created by the increased markets and demand generated
through the Business expansion.
- Expanding Existing Employers: improve the regulatory environmental
and operational conditions to help stimulate business expansion of existing
firms, especially among those firms, which possess excess property.
Resources available.
We currently receive direct funding through the Empower Baltimore
Management Corporation which distributes funds from the HUD Empowerment
Zone Grant. The Fairfield EIP also received funds through the Baltimore
Development Corporation. Outstanding funding proposals for specific activities
outlined in the EIP Strategic Plan have been or will soon be submitted to
the Economic Development Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency,
and Maryland Department of Economic and Business Development, the Maryland
Department of the Environment, and the Department of Energy. In addition,
private funding is being pursued through local and national lending institutions,
social investment and venture capital funds, local foundations, and EIP
membership obligations.
Strategy to continue progressing.
Our comprehensive redevelopment strategy is illustrated by the
attached exhibit.
What is missing?
Assistance is needed in the following areas:
- Securing and reliable site assessment information and support for Phase
I site assessments.
- Information related to cost or efficiency improvements associated with
environmental technology or pollution prevention integration.
- Creating significant and meaningful incentives to motivate firms to
operate in a manner that would stimulate sustainable practice, i.e., market
driven advantages for "green" or environmentally conscious manufacturing
processes and products such as "preferable products" designation
or public sector purchasing targets.
- Provide technical assistance or funding that would support the integration
of pollution prevention, environmental technology, and material reuse integration,
i.e., detailed input/output analyses which expose innovative ways to reuse
resources.
- Provide collective waste water treatment, energy co-generation, and
emission reduction models or strategies, analyses, or information.
- Provide funding for the creation of an eco-manufacturing research facility
including education and training provisions to prepare workers for new
occupational growth in environmental industries.
Goals for the upcoming workshop.
- To share ideas about conducting a wide variety of support activities
which promote business expansion, job creation, and community redevelopment,
while implementing the characteristics of an ecological industrial park.
- To share ideas and successes to demonstrate that economic growth can
occur without having a greater negative impact on the environment.
- To build partnerships to ensure that the ecological industrial park
concept becomes a traditional way of doing business in the 21th century.
This case study describes Fairfield's status as of the October 1996 Cape Charles workshop. For an update on the Fairfield project, now renamed the Fairfield Eco-Business Park, and its progress, visit Fairfield's webpage at http://www.buildfairfield.com
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Case Study Source: Eco-Industrial Park (EIP) Workshop, Cape Charles,
Va., October 17-18, 1996.