by Conor Berry, originally posted on December 14, 2016

AGAWAM — Water contamination issues are improving at the former Games and Lanes property, according to Site Redevelopment Technologies, the Foxborough company that owns the Agawam parcel at 346-350 Walnut St. Extension.

Members of the Agawam City Council, speaking during meetings last week and last month, expressed frustration over the derelict property, which has been vacant since 2001 and remains a major blemish in a business district ripe for redevelopment.

The roughly 2.3-acre property was formerly owned by Standard Uniform Corp., which leased the building to Games and Lanes when the uniform rental business moved in the late 1980s.

Widespread groundwater contamination from dry-cleaning chemicals was discovered in 1989, spreading off-site in a northeasterly direction. The parcel was sold last spring to Site Redevelopment Technologies, or SRT, which buys, cleans and redevelops environmentally impaired properties.

David Peter, SRT’s president, sent a letter this week to Mayor Richard A. Cohen and the City Council, updating them on cleanup efforts at the property. Groundwater testing of selected wells indicates things are getting better, according to Peter.

“Results indicate that the levels of contaminants are continuing to improve and the subsurface environment is conducive to continued remediation,” he wrote in the letter, dated Monday, Dec. 12.

No municipal drinking water supplies or known private groundwater production wells are located within 500 feet of the site, according to a report submitted to MassDEP.

City Councilor Anthony R. Suffriti has made it his mission to keep the eyesore property on the council’s radar, reminding colleagues at each meeting that the site continues to generate complaints about vagrants and people who enter the building.

“The complaints are just continuous,” Suffriti said at a recent council meeting, calling the site a hazard that must be addressed.

“This has gone on for 15 years,” added Joseph Mineo, vice president of the City Council, voicing frustration over the slow progress. “It’s tiring driving by there every day and looking at that,” he said.

After buying the site in April, SRT has spent a considerable amount of time and money trying to comply with cleanup regulations, according to Peter.

“Our goal is to complete all the work necessary to allow redevelopment of the property, but as you can imagine it is not an easy task,” he said in a Nov. 18 letter to Cohen and the City Council.

The cleanup work is expected to be completed by spring 2017, according to Peter.

The building is in an area designated as a “priority development site” by the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, which produced a 2010 economic development plan for the City of Agawam.

The city hopes to develop the Walnut Street Extension area into a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly commercial district.