The Bethlehem Commerce Center land recycling project in Northampton County won the People’s Choice Award and the Region 3 overall 2006 Phoenix Award during the Phoenix Awards Ceremony at the Brownfields 2006 conference held this week in Boston.

The People’s Choice Award goes to the project that received the most votes from the 7,000 conference attendees, and the overall award goes to the outstanding land recycling project in each of the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s 10 regions.

The Bethlehem Commerce Center Project is an ambitious redevelopment of the former Bethlehem Steel site in Northampton County. This site was named the first Brownfield Action Team site by Gov. Rendell in August 2004, and barely two years later several business and hundreds of employees are now located on this site.

Eventually, the mix of commercial, office, manufacturing and warehousing businesses planned for this 1,600-acre development will employ 6,000 workers with an annual payroll of $210 million. Altogether, BAT has assisted 32 projects in 22 counties to redevelop more than 4,500 acres of brownfields, creating and retaining as many as 35,000 jobs.

Under the state’s land recycling program, the state has cleaned up 2,194 contaminated and abandoned industrial sites, creating or retaining as many as 76,000 jobs since 1995.

The Phoenix Awards, created in 1997, honors individuals and groups working to solve critical environmental challenges of transforming blighted and contaminated areas into productive new uses.

Link: Former Bethlehem Steel Site to be Converted into Business Park

11/17/2006