Sustainability Street: Brownfields Are Having Their Moment

Welcome back to Sustainability Street, our podcast on the intersection of commercial real estate and the world we live in. For this episode, I'm talking about brownfield remediation with David Greek, managing partner of Greek Real Estate Partners. Based in New Jersey, the nation's densest state, Greek is well-versed in turning remnants of the past into real estate opportunities for the future. And, while there are state incentives for cleaning up contaminated sites, he said the best driver for remediation is the market. That's why brownfields are having their moment. As the demand for industrial real estate has boomed in recent years, more developers have turned to brownfields to unlock development sites. "While the Brownfields program in New Jersey has been around for a long time, a lot of uptick in the remediation activity only really occurred when the value of the underlying real estate justified it," Greek said. Here are some of the topics we covered: Third-generation developer (1:18) Remediation as a necessity in New Jersey (6:54) What's driving brownfield demand nationally (10:49) The national picture (13:03) Case in point: Linden Logistics Center (14:16) Incentives vs. market forces (20:16) The New Jersey model for remediation (23:16) Managing brownfield risk (29:06) Brownfields and the Trump-era EPA (33:00) How to learn more about brownfields (36:09)