Brownfield cleanup costs worst in S.D.

San Diego ranks as the nation’s worst when it comes to cleaning up industrial sites for redevelopment purposes, according to a report released Monday.

Arcadis, a Dutch-based design and environmental consulting firm that was involved in the recently opened Carlsbad water reclamation plant, ranked San Diego 22nd out of 27 U.S. metro areas in attractiveness for redeveloping industrial sites.

The city ranked 27th in cleanup costs and 24th in real estate opportunities. It was among the five “commercial weak spots,” halfway between Cleveland and Detroit. New York City, despite nearly as high cleanup costs, ranked first among the five “commercial sweet spot” areas.

The report’s author, Kurt Beil, Arcadis’ global leader for environmental restoration, said San Diego scored relatively worse because of “stringent regulatory requirements.”

Those are present in Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well, he said. But those two cities, as well as New York, have bigger and more dynamic economies. Another factor is San Diego has relatively few contaminated industrial sites or “brownfields” to clean up and thus less interest in developers specializing in that turnaround work.

“In that sense you’re ahead of the game,” Beil said.

Beil noted that while San Diego has overall high cleanup costs, it ranks better in “restricted closure costs” that apply to projects where a complete cleanup is not necessary.

Erik Bruvold, president of the National University System Institute for Policy Research, agreed that California cities compete relatively poorly in brownfield cleanup costs.

“It is simply harder and more expensive to do stuff in (the state) with the three California metros outpacing everyone else,” he said in an email.

Gary London, a local real estate consultant, said many of downtown San Diego’s brownfields have been cleaned up over the last 30 years, leaving relatively few to attract redevelopment investors’ interest.

One prominent brownfield currently in the news is the 8-acre MTS bus yard in downtown’s East Village where the Chargers want to build an NFL stadium and others eye it as a possible high-tech job center site.

Other former industrial sites that have been redeveloped in recent years include the General Dynamics missile plant in Kearny Mesa that has become San Diego Spectrum, an office and residential complex, and Civita, a housing development in Mission Valley that occupies a former sand and gravel plant.

Arcadis said it developed its “Urban Land Restoration Index” to help developers pinpoint what cities, big and small, might be ripe for investment. A report accompanying the rankings said the company found 20,000 industrial sites deemed surplus around the country. Beil said the index will likely be updated annually and expand to cities around the world.

“Poor-quality information often leads to suboptimal decision-making,” the report said, and properties can languish for years, generating few returns for owners and economic payoffs to cities.

The report was predicated on the idea that because employers and employees are returning to the cities for places to live and work, brownfields offer places where new development can occur to meet demand.

“The successful growth of United States’ cities is hinged upon many factors,” the report said, “but at the heart of the issue is the availability of ‘developable’ properties that are critical to not only sustaining cities’ growth but also transforming them into desirable destinations for residents and visitors alike.”

Arcadis maintains an office in San Diego and was involved in the construction of the Carlsbad water reclamation plant that opened earlier this year.