University Place & Foundry Center

As part of a larger U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Brownfields Area-wide Planning and Environmental Assessment project, Landmarks SGA developed architectural and adaptive reuse recommendations for a 75 acres area of brownfields sites, including the ACF Industries railcar complex located in the Highlawn neighborhood of the city. Adjacent to Marshall University and within the Huntington Brownfields Innovation Zone (H-BIZ), the firm developed conceptual design for how portions of the sprawling ACF industrial complex and adjacent properties could be adaptively reused as a mixed-use center to serve a wide variety of business, office, research, housing, and recreational uses, including a hotel conference center, NCAA ballpark, and associated university facilities. The project was an instrumental component of the City receiving a $3M America’s Best Communities Award in 2017. https://americasbestcommunities.com/meet-the-communities/5600/

For more than 100 years, this area of Highlawn was the center of manufacturing and industrial uses which are now gone. To address these brownfields, HMDA has worked with the WV Department of Environmental Protection, U.S. EPA, the WV Development Office, the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Just Transition Fund, the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, and key local parties to assess and manage brownfields contamination, to identify needed infrastructure and neighborhood upgrades, and to create a highly-viable and market-ready plan for redevelopment. HMDA is underway with plans to acquire and assemble these sites, and has private sector partners to carry the development plan forward.