PUTNAM — Putnam and Thompson were awarded more than $500,000 total to help support the redevelopment of historically significant brownfield sites.

Last week Governor Dannel P. Malloy announced the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) has awarded $300,000 to Putnam to support assessment and reuse planning for the Belding Mill on Providence Street and $218,000 was awarded to Thompson to support assessment and reuse planning for the River Mill on Riverside Drive

 In previous rounds of remediation funding, DECD’s Office of Brownfield Remediation and Development (OBRD) has received many applications to assess or remediate mill properties and other historically significant structures, but often there has been limited reuse planning done to consider innovative redevelopment strategies once remediation is complete. In many rural communities, historic mill villages represent the only high-density developments that provide an opportunity for context-sensitive revitalization that minimizes the impacts of economic development on open space, farmlands and other cultural and environmental resources.

 The Historic Brownfield Revitalization Program will provide grants to assess environmental and structural conditions, and conduct community-driven reuse visioning and planning exercises for historically significant brownfield sites.

 Other towns receiving grants include: Bridgeport, Enfield, Haddam, New Haven, Norwich, and Vernon.

“I appreciate the Governor’s continued confidence in the “quiet corner” as we try to assess what type of contamination we are dealing with in the mills left in our area,” said State Representative Danny Rovero (D-Killingly, Putnam, Thompson).   “We need to make an intelligent decision on remediating these mills and getting them to their preferred outcome which is reuse.”