Trinidad gets $500,000 EPA grant for downtown brownfield assessments

Trinidad won a $500,000 Environmental Protection Agency brownfields assessment grant that will send testing and inventory work into five downtown and riverfront sites, moving long-running redevelopment plans in El Corazon de Trinidad and along the Purgatoire River Walk from concept to fieldwork. The award gives city staff and consultants the money to check what can be reused, what needs cleanup, and which parcels can support housing, commercial space or public use.

The city’s application names the Schneider Brewery Complex at 236 North Convent Street and the Former West Hotel at 267 North Commercial Street as priority sites, along with properties at 165 East 1st Street and 225 North Chestnut Street. The grant is designed to evaluate asbestos, lead-based paint and petroleum fuel contamination at the five sites, the kinds of problems that often slow or stop redevelopment in older downtown blocks.

Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment said the money will support inventory and assessment work in Trinidad, the town of Aguilar and Las Animas County, underscoring that the project reaches beyond a single downtown block. The EPA’s Colorado brownfields announcement said the agency selected communities across the state to assess and clean polluted sites, and Trinidad is among the municipalities now positioned to move into the next stage of planning.

The new grant builds on a local brownfields program that has already brought in multiple federal awards. Trinidad’s application says earlier Brownfields Coalition Assessment and Cleanup grants helped leverage $50 million in additional cleanup and redevelopment funding, a record that shows how assessment dollars can turn into larger capital projects. A Colorado Brownfields Partnership case study said the city’s program has been active for years with help from Stantec and other partners.

Trinidad has already used prior brownfields grants to push visible projects forward. EPA awarded nearly $1 million in 2023 to the Mt. Carmel Wellness and Community Center for cleanup of the former Holy Trinity Convent and School, where widespread asbestos and lead-based paint were found. In 2021, EPA also awarded Trinidad a $500,000 Brownfields grant for the Fox West Theatre project; city manager Mike Valentine described the building as a 1908 brick structure with two balconies and a ballroom.