An empty pit is shown at Heritage Square.

The City of Astoria has received a $2 million Brownfields Cleanup Grant from the Environmental Protection Agency — the latest step in a yearslong effort to address industrial pollution at Heritage Square downtown.

For decades, the site on Exchange Street was a hub for industrial activities, ranging from auto repair and paint sales to drycleaning and print operations. Now, a parking lot and large pit remain, and beneath the surface lie volatile organic compounds and petroleum hydrocarbons well beyond EPA standards. 

For years, that pollution has left the site undevelopable and inaccessible to the public.

“Anytime you have a property … if you do have environmental issues that need to be addressed, it’s difficult to redevelop property,” said City Manager Scott Spence.

Over the past two decades, the city has conducted environmental assessments and remedial planning at the site. The new cleanup grant — the largest EPA award in the city’s history — will help pave the way for mitigating pollution and filling the pit to bring it to grade-level. 

The work fits into a broader process of envisioning a future for the site as a public gathering space. Last year, the City Council approved a memorandum of understanding with Friends of Heritage Square, a local group that has pushed for a public gathering space. In the months since, the city has worked with First Forty Feet, a Portland-based firm, to create a plan for the development of a public space and help guide a public engagement process.

Ideas for the space have included park amenities, community events and the expansion of the Astoria Sunday Market.

“Really, this is the first step if we’re going to reclaim the space for the community,” Spence said. “We need to address environmental issues and then get the site up to grade level and take the fence down so it could actually be used again. … So by getting this grant, this is a significant initiative to be able to achieve that overall vision.”

Spence said the city will be finalizing the grant agreement in the next few months, and then will begin design work to address environmental remediation at the site. Construction could begin next year.