Schenectady lot to be cleaned up for redevelopment

PHOTOGRAPHER: Patrick Dodson

A vacant lot at 37 Van Guysling Avenue in Schenectady on Thursday, July 10, 2014.

Contamination will be removed from an empty lot in Schenectady’s Broadway Commerce Park, paving the way for the site to be used for future development.

The site at 37 Van Guysling Ave. is near a once-heavily contaminated parking lot on Broadway near Clinton Street. National Grid spent $2 million cleaning up contaminants from more than 2.5 acres of the lot, which once housed a manufacturing plant that extracted gas from coal to light homes during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Last summer, the Schenectady County Metroplex Development Authority approved lighting, landscaping and other improvements to the lot.

“This will be another brownfield cleaned up and another development site to open up the Broadway corridor,” said Metroplex Chairman Ray Gillen. “That corridor had a lot of rundown properties and houses. It’s not perfect, but if you look at the investment that’s gone into that area, it’s become a really important gateway to downtown.”

Metroplex will provide $85,000 toward the cleanup to match a state grant of $815,000 through the Department of Environmental Conservation’s Environmental Restoration Program.