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DiNaso
& Sons Incorporated Building Supply Expansion
Camden City, Camden County
The former Camden Recycling Company property, located on Mount
Ephraim Avenue in Camden, has been transformed to accommodate
the expansion of the neighboring DiNaso & Sons, Inc. building
supply company. This expansion, used for building material
storage, created thirty new jobs in the community and sparked
urban revitalization. Grants that allowed DiNaso to expand,
also allowed for the rest of the Mt. Ephraim Avenue business corridor
to revitalize.
This approximately 80-acre parcel was originally developed as
a drive-in theater and later operated as a scrap metal recycling
facility from 1940 to 1995. In 1995, industrial operations
at the facility ceased, triggering the Industrial Site Recovery
Act (ISRA) and an environmental assessment. The site investigation,
overseen by DEP case manager Al Anderson, revealed contaminated
soils associated with the removal of three former fuel underground
storage tanks and the presence of historic fill throughout the
property.
In response to the soil contamination, an asphalt cap served
as an engineered control. In addition to the cap, a deed
notice was issued for the entire property. A No Further
Action and Covenant Not to Sue letter was issued on November 26,
2003 after the case manager inspected and certified the engineering
control.
The $500,000 used to remediate the site was generated by taxes
from the city's Urban Enterprise one (UEZ) designation.
Camden’s UEZ program, like others throughout New Jersey,
has been an extremely successful tool in creating jobs and fostering
urban revitalization. According to John DiNaso, this was
a contaminated site. Today, thanks to the UEZ, the City
of Camden, and the State of New Jersey, this project has become
a viable part of the revitalization of Mt. Ephraim Avenue, where
45 people, many of them local residents, now have jobs. |