At the Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant in Arden Hills, 43 out of 44 buildings have been torn down, and that’s a good thing.
It’s the one-year anniversary of the start of clean-up at TCAAP, and the stats are in. Ramsey County purchased the 427-acre federal Superfund property in April 2013 and environmental work has been finished on about 100 acres, which are awaiting final soil testing, according to a county news release.
After that, a joint county-city planning process will guide redevelopment of the site.
The land had once been envisioned as the future host of a Minnesota Vikings stadium, but the city of Minneapolis and state lawmakers opted instead to help team owner Zygi Wilf rebuild the Minneapolis Metrodome.
Crews with general contractor Carl Bolander and Sons have removed the equivalent of more than 35 miles of material from the TCAAP site. How much dirt are we talking about here? It’s enough to stretch from the site to downtown St. Paul to downtown Minneapolis… and back.
That 35,000 feet of fence, 40,000 feet of railroad tracks, 12,000 feet of steam/condensate piping, and more than 10,000 feet of water, gas, storm, and sanitary sewer piping, according to the release.
It goes on to state:
“Additionally, Bolander crews have removed, crushed and stockpiled more than 100,000 tons of concrete and asphalt for recycling, which is equivalent to the weight of an average passenger cruise ship.”
Approximately 90 percent of the materials on the TCAAP site will be recycled or reused in new roadways on the site and in other parts of the Twin Cities.
The one remaining building – Building #502 – needed asbestos remediation, which was completed this winter. Before the building is demolished this summer, crews will also remove contaminated soil and concrete that needs to be disposed of in a specific manner, according to the county.
The overall clean-up work will be completed in October 2015.
The current vision is to locate commercial development in the center or on the southwestern edge of the site. Residential development would be divided into three different types of neighborhoods on the east side of the site.
The draft master plan includes:
• 1,500 housing units on 168 acres
• 2 million square feet of office space on 156 acres
• 300,000 square feet of retail space on 18 acres
• 53 acres of open space
Approval of the draft master plan — which has been circulated in open houses — will likely occur in early summer. The county recently selected the St. Paul Port Authority as the real estate consultant for the acreage.