The City of Waterloo was selected to present at the 2025 National Brownfields Conference held in Chicago, IL from August 5-8th. Mr. Noel Anderson, Community Planning and Development Director, provided the audience with an overview of its award-winning Jefferson Street Corridor. The presentation detailed how partnerships with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA), Iowa Department of Natural Resources (Iowa DNR), United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the United States Economic Development Administration (EDA) — as well as with local developers and companies— helped cleanup brownfield sites. Highlighted projects included the Tech Works Campus, Art Bloc building, Grand Crossing Phase I and II, Hawkeye Community College’s Van Miller Learning Center, Cedar Valley SportsPlex, and SingleSpeed Brewing.
The follow is a description of the presentation: “Waterloo built its early economy on the farming industry. Employers like John Deere provided thousands of stable, well-paying jobs to the region for much of the twentieth century. The city’s fortunes abruptly changed in the 1980s as a deep agricultural recession shook the community that depended on a narrow economic foundation. Waterloo lost approximately 12.5% of its population over the next decade as businesses closed or downsized workforces. Abandoned structures, vacant lots, and underutilized properties plagued downtown for the next 20 years as a result. U.S. EPA’s Brownfields Program served as the impetus for a dramatic turnaround that helped transition its Jefferson Street Corridor into an award-winning district, earning both the 2023 EPA Region 7 Phoenix Award and a 2018 Audrey Nelson Community Development Achievement Award.”
