Norwich — With developers expressing interest in the Norwich portion of the former Norwich Hospital property, the city Redevelopment Agency on Wednesday approved using $45,500 of the city’s federal environmental assessment grant to study three buildings and land for potential contamination.

Amy Vaillancourt, licensed environmental professional for Tighe & Bond Inc., the city’s environmental consultant for the federal brownfield assessment grant, toured the property with owner Carl Castanho on Wednesday morning prior to the noon redevelopment agency meeting to approve the funding.

Vaillancourt told the agency that one developer is interested in the Martin, Pondview and a former employee residence building, and another developer is looking at the Lippitt Building — a large, square, brick building with a central courtyard — for a possible convention center.

The agency approved a three-page scope of services agreement with Tighe & Bond on Wednesday for a limited environmental site assessment, including a review of past reports, collection of soil samples and a “limited structural assessment” of the four buildings. A structural engineer will spend one day at the site and will “highlight the major architectural and structural deficiencies of the buildings,” the proposal stated.

Samples of paint chips and areas of suspected asbestos material will be taken.

“Areas deemed to be unsafe or inaccessible will not be viewed,” the proposal states. No cost estimates for repairs or rehabilitation will be done.

Castanho, who did not attend the redevelopment agency meeting, later said he was pleased with the grant and that city officials are trying to help him get the property developed. He said he could not discuss details “until things are more firm.” But he added that he is very optimistic that development will happen there.

“I’ve been really busy, talking to a lot of developers, a lot of people,” Castanho said Wednesday. “There are a lot of promising things, but I’m not at the point to discuss anything yet. I am excited about the future of this development, more than ever.”

Castanho Development LLC acquired the nearly 50-acre Norwich portion of the former Norwich Hospital property through a mortgage foreclosure in October 2018 against the former Thames River Landing developer, Mark Fields. Thames River Landing, led by Fields, had purchased the property from the state in 2015 for $300,000, financed by Castanho’s company.

No cleanup has been done on the Norwich portion of the campus, and buildings are in various states of decay, overgrown with weeds and brush. The property includes a subdivision of single-family former employees’ homes located off Route 12, also abandoned and overgrown.

In 2005, the city ordered an environmental study by the environmental engineering firm Fuss & O’Neill, which estimated environmental cleanup costs at $1.1 million. Vaillancourt said she did an update of that report in 2009 and will use those reports as a basis for the new assessment.

Preston took ownership of the much larger 393-acre Norwich Hospital campus in 2009, but Norwich decided against taking ownership of the portion on its side of the towns' shared border. Preston has obtained federal and state grants and loans for environmental cleanup and demolition, and is seeking an additional $2 million in state grant money to finish the work before transferring the property to Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment for a proposed major development.

The final hurdle in Preston is coal ash contamination used by the state as roadbed material beneath the former roads that snaked through the property. Vaillancourt said the Norwich portion likely has coal ash contamination along with building material hazards, such as lead paint and asbestos.

Vaillancourt called the $45,500 study “seed money” to assist the owner and potential developers to learn the property cleanup needs.

Norwich city officials also hope the grant approval will encourage other property owners to request similar assessments of their properties.

The city received the $384,000 grant in 2016 — divided into $185,000 for petroleum assessment and $199,000 for hazardous substance assessments — and must spend it by Sept. 30, City Planner Deanna Rhodes said. Including the Norwich Hospital grant, the city has assigned only $142,227 of the total.

Rhodes said the city is seeking a one-year grant extension from the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

The city sent postcards to commercial property owners to alert them of the assessment grants for “abandoned, idle, or underutilized industrial and commercial properties where the reuse, expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination.”

Interested property owners should contact Rhodes at (860) 823-3766 or drhodes@cityofnorwich.org for more information about the grant program.

c.bessette@theday.com