Waterside Brownfield Redevelopment in Bensalem Township, PA

Opportunity

As part of an overall plan to revitalize an industrial core area and take advantage of easy access to Philadelphia and New Jersey, a 605-unit mixed-use residential project was being developed on a 40-acre Brownfield site along the Delaware River that was formerly an industrial chemical manufacturing plant.

Challenge

This project involved complicated coordination with the permitting agencies due to the complexity of the proposed development and the pre-existing environmental constraints at the site.

Solution

Montrose provided surveying, civil engineering, landscape architecture and geotechnical engineering services to design this residential brownfield redevelopment and integrate it into the planned regional waterfront greenway. The stormwater design included innovative features as part of the Individual NPDES permit for special water quality inlets and basins to remove pollutants. Montrose worked with PADEP, the US Army Corps of Engineers, Pennsylvania Brownfield Action Team, and the Bucks County Conservation District in order to obtain the required permits for construction of the Traditional-Neighborhood Development with a nine-acre waterfront community park that runs along the entire river frontage. The stormwater and landscape architecture design for the park included protected, restored, and created wetlands, preservation of significant trees, a new pathway system, timber bridges, outdoor seating, and landscaping with native trees, shrubs, grasses, and groundcover. Montrose also designed vapor mitigation systems for the individual building units that were situated over groundwater that was impacted with volatile organic compounds.