Uptown Bay City Featured in New Video

The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has released the third in a series of videos showcasing its brownfield redevelopment projects. The videos highlight successful redevelopment projects at which DEQ financial incentives and technical assistance helped communities clean up and safely reuse brownfields.

The DEQ helps communities clean up and safely reuse brownfields – properties that are known or believed to be contaminated – with financial incentives and technical assistance. With DEQ help, cities and towns across Michigan have turned their eyesores into thriving businesses and neighborhoods. The videos include interviews and insights from local officials and developers about partnerships, tactics, and tools for brownfield redevelopment.

The newest video features Uptown Bay City. For years, the blighted hulk of the old Industrial Brownhoist factory, once a major local employer, sat empty. A 43-acre contaminated site doesn’t get redeveloped overnight. Bay City’s perseverance, and financial incentives and technical assistance from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, helped clean up and safely reuse this brownfield site. Uptown Bay City is now a beautiful riverfront development with a marina, hotel, restaurants, offices, and condominiums

Uptown Bay City marketing director Stuart Kelly said, “The main goal is to make the Great Lakes Bay Region a destination.” Uptown Bay City takes advantage of beautiful views and Saginaw River access with waterfront dining, residences, and a marina. Bay City’s economic development project manager, Sara Dimitroff, continues, “It’s an amazing transformation, a catalyst for development in our community, but I don’t think we knew the degree… and we’re really seeing it now.” The project was a success, in part, thanks to the MDEQ’s investment of brownfield grants, loans, and tax increment financing. “The DEQ and EPA were critical early partners, patient partners, that helped us do some of the proactive work in order to get the site ready,” said former assistant city manager Steve Black.