More than three decades after a Gainesville property was put on a federal list of toxic sites, city officials are finally getting serious about improving the neighborhood around it.
The Koppers property, which housed a wood-treatment operation, was put on the federal Superfund cleanup list in 1983. It wasn’t until last year that the cleanup of the site and surrounding residential properties in the Stephen Foster neighborhood kicked into gear.
Local officials spent years wrangling with the company responsible for the site’s cleanup, Beazer East, so can be somewhat forgiven for a lack of attention to the neighborhood around it. But it was obvious that the area was becoming blighted long before a city-hired firm made a designation of blight official this year.