Florida's "Highways to Health Care Initiative"

Communities along several major transportation corridors in Florida face the dual challenge of petroleum-related brownfields and inadequate access to health care facilities. The “Highways to Healthcare” initiative plans to solve both.  The Initiative is a community-driven effort to redevelop contaminated UST sites and other
brownfields along major corridors in Florida and to turn the sites into clinics and other health and public service facilities. This multisite planning initiative has fostered nontraditional partnerships and provided a means to get lagging properties off the state’s corrective backlog while also addressing the broader goals of neighborhood revitalization and human services. In St. Petersburg, for example, help from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s abandoned storage tank program led to the cleanup of a site that now houses the Johnnie Ruth Clarke Health Center, initially contaminated from both an offsite abandoned gas station and an on-site deteriorated boiler tank.  The redevelopment of this site has proven to be catalytic, spurring further development in the area including a performing arts center and retail and grocery shopping.  For more information about the Highways to Healthcare initiative, download a presentation about the program from the National Association of Local Government Environmental Professionals at

http://www.nalgep.org/ewebeditpro/items/O93F24871.pdf.