Grant funding has been announced for the former Niagara Motors site located in the city of Dunkirk on Main near Doughty Street.

In March 2010, the New York state Department of Environmental Conservation designated the former Niagara Motors brownfield site an Environmental Restoration Project. A Record of Decision was presented with selected remedies to clean up the contaminated site in accordance with New York state Environmental Conservation Law, 6 NYCRR Part 375. Although a Record of Decision existed, developers interested in the site were consistently concerned with clean-up costs which deterred any future redevelopment.

Mayor Wilfred Rosas directed the Planning and Development Department to look for funding to clean-up this brownfield site and after submitting a grant application to New York State’s Environmental Restoration Program, was accepted into the program. Within the Record of Decision, the selected remedy Alternative D: Excavation of Highly Impacted Soil/Fill and Cover System Installation was chosen by the Department of Environmental Conservation. At the time of the Record of Decision, cleanup costs came to $540,000. The grant funding for this project will cover 90% of today’s inflation rate of this cleanup cost.

“This is a huge win for the city of Dunkirk,” Rosas said. “We are constantly getting inquiries on this site, but as soon as a developer hears it is a brownfield site that requires large cleanup dollars, they always walk away. Our city has many brownfield sites and it is our goal to get these sites shovel ready for redevelopment. I believe that once the former Niagara Motors site is cleaned up, we will have many offers on the site. I want to thank Governor Cuomo and the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation for granting us these funds for site restoration.”