Former Harrisburg State Hospital campus expected to benefit from new brownfields funding

Dauphin County has received a new federal grant that could help spur redevelopment of the former Harrisburg State Hospital campus.

County and federal officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday announced a $300,000 brownfields grant for Dauphin County, part of a nationwide grant rollout.  The EPA program funds environmental assessments of blighted or underused industrial and commercial properties, also known as brownfield sites, that could be cleaned up and reused.

The sites are usually associated with environmental contamination from hazardous chemicals. But cleaning them up can spark economic development.

County officials said the nearly 300-acre state hospital site near Interstate 81 could benefit from the grant funding as commercial interest in the site grows. The site is being taken over from the state by Dauphin’s redevelopment authority.

The county has said developers are likely to focus on developing portions of the property that are closest to the Pennsylvania Farm Show, along Cameron Street and Elmerton Avenue. Hotels, shops and a commercial office park are all possibilities for the property.

But some demolition of older state buildings is likely going to be part of redeveloping the campus, which is where the environmental assessment money will factor in. That work will determine what type of site remediation is needed in specific areas before anything new can be built.

The hospital portion shut down in 2006 but state workers continued to toil inside many of the 45 buildings scattered on the property. Over the last few years, workers have been moving to newer offices, leaving behind buildings in varying states of disrepair. The campus could be entirely devoid of state workers by 2020.

Dauphin County previously received $400,000 in brownfields funding, which helped fund environmental assessments for about 20 vacant sites in the county. Among them is the site of a mixed-use redevelopment in Steelton.

The county also used a portion of that funding on the former Hummelstown municipal complex, which is slated to become the new home of Rubber Soul Brewing.

In the EPA’s latest funding round for brownfields, Pennsylvania received $3.9 million, including $300,000 that is going to Harrisburg for assessments around Derry Street and the Cameron Street corridor.