NEWS 25 - WEHT: Evansville, Henderson, Owensboro-NEWS 25 Questions Brownfields Corporation

NEWS 25 Questions Brownfields Corporation

story by Courtney Fischer

EVANSVILLE - When the city refurbishes downtown neighborhoods, there are several agencies behind the renovation. You've heard of Front Door Pride, but what about the Brownfields Corporation?

After viewers contact us asking questions NEWS 25 went straight to city leaders who sit on Brownfields board for answers.

For years, the city's focus has been on downtown revitalization: giving rough neighborhoods a facelift by building new homes.

Front Door Pride is one of the most recognized groups pushing for change. But there are others... Brownfields Corporation is an independent board that owns 174 properties across the city.

"Front Door Pride is simply the city carving out a big piece of real estate that we're trying to figure out many different ways to come back. And Brownfields board is one of the entities the city works with trying to get that done," says Tom Barnett.

Barnett is one of five members to the Brownfields board. The mayor, GAGE, the chamber, and city council make those appointments. Barnett is the director of the department of metropolitan development for the city and automatically serves on the board.

"Brownfields is an independent board much like Habitat for Humanity, HOPE of Evansville, ECHO housing," Barnett says.

Much like these organizations, Barnett says Brownfields gets most of it's money from federal grants. This year, the group received no money from the city.

I asked for a list of properties acquired by Brownfields and their purchase prices. The sales range from 170,000 dollars to zero dollars.

"Some of these properties, you can see low cost, they came to us through tax sale," Barnett points out.

After Brownfields acquires the property it hands the land over to the agency--like Habitat for Humanity or Front Door Pride--that is in charge of the renovations.

Brownfields currently holds closed door meetings.

"Because you've asked, the media's made inquiries; we've considered opening the meetings. We have nothing to hide," Barnett says.

Brownfields has been an organization for five years. You may not have heard of the group until recently, because it can take years to turn over a property.