$6.8 Million for Jobs and Economic Development in Boston

["cpeo@cpeo.org" <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

Cuomo Awards $6.8 Million to Help Create Jobs and Economic Development in
Boston

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 -- Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo
today announced $6.8 million in assistance for Boston to redevelop an old
industrial site in the city's Roxbury neighborhood into a commercial
development and parking facility. The project will create an estimated
1,200 jobs and stimulate more than $8.7 million in additional investment.

``One of the most important challenges facing cities today is cleaning up
and revitalizing
abandoned industrial and commercial sites that were the engines of
America's economic
greatness in our past,'' Cuomo said. ``Working in partnership with
communities, we can
transform these areas into generators of new jobs and new prosperity in our
future.''

Cuomo made the announcement today in a telephone conference call with U.S.
Senators
Edward Kennedy and John Kerry, Congressman Michael Capuano and Boston Mayor
Thomas
Menino.

Senator Kennedy said: ``With major investment by HUD and the City of Boston
in the Dudley
neighborhood and the rest of the Empowerment Zone, we cannot afford to let
sites like this
remain vacant. This is just one of a number of projects now underway to
build a new Dudley
Square in the City of Boston. The cleanup of the sites such as these means
that many more of our communities can participate in the economic growth
and prosperity of the nation.''

Congressman Capuano said: ``This brownfields grant allows the City of
Boston to clean up the contaminated Modern Electroplating site in Dudley
Square and transform it once again into a functional tract of land. This is
good news for the environment and for the neighborhood. I commend Mayor
Menino, Senator Kennedy and Senator Kerry for their leadership on this
important initiative.

Boston will receive a $1.75 million Brownfields Economic Development
Initiative grant and $5.05 million in loan guarantees to redevelop the
Modern Electroplating site in the Dudley Square, Roxbury neighborhood. The
City of Boston and the Boston Redevelopment Authority will use these funds
to turn the site into a commercial development and parking facility, and
eliminate an environmental hazard that endangers future development in the
Dudley Square commercial district. The State Department of Health is also
expected to relocate its headquarters office to the Dudley Square
neighborhood as a result of the redevelopment.

On top of the HUD assistance, businesses and other local, state and federal
government agencies are expected to invest more than $8.72 million in
additional funds in the Boston brownfield area. The total project is
expected to create an estimated 1,200 jobs. In addition to the city, key
partners in the project include BankBoston, the State Department of Capital
Asset Management and the State Brownfields Trust, the City Brownfields
Revolving Loan Fund, Raymond Dudley, LLC and the Economic Development
Administration.

Brownfield sites include abandoned factories and other industrial
facilities, gasoline stations, oil storage facilities, dry cleaning stores,
and other businesses that dealt with polluting substances. Since 1993, the
Clinton Administration has taken a series of actions to clean up and
redevelop brownfields and return them to productive use, including:
providing seed money to communities for revitalization; removing regulatory
barriers to redevelopment; and providing a targeted tax incentive to
businesses that purchase and clean up the sites.

The loan guarantees, also known as the Section 108 Program, provide
communities with a
source of financing for job creation, housing rehabilitation, and
construction of public facilities and large-scale development projects.

Vice President Gore announced the Clinton Administration's Brownfields
National Partnership in 1997 to bring together resources of over 20 federal
agencies to address brownfield cleanup and redevelopment issues in a
coordinated approach. HUD works with other federal agencies to provide
communities with financial and technical assistance to revitalize brownfields.

Cuomo accompanied President Clinton last month on the President's New
Markets Tour of economically distressed communities that highlighted the
economic potential for investment in underserved markets. The President is
proposing tax incentives and investment tools that will make it more
attractive for corporate America to search for opportunities in such
communities.

A recent HUD report titled New Markets: The Untapped Retail Buying Power In
America's
Inner Cities showed that America's inner city neighborhoods -- with $331
billion in annual retail purchasing power -- hold major economic potential
for retail business growth. The report found:

    -- Inner city neighborhoods possess enormous retail purchasing power --
       estimated at $331 billion last year, or one-third of the $1.1 trillion
       total for the central cities in which those neighborhoods are located.
       The report suggests that businesses not yet operating in inner cities
       should not ignore that large domestic market.

    -- Despite their huge buying power, many inner city communities are
       "under-retailed," with sales that fall significantly short of
       residents' retail purchasing power.  The report makes clear that there
       a large inner city consumer market worth competing for.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development