North Carolina Project Recycles Abandoned Mill

A project in Charlotte, N.C., has crews pulling out 90 tons of metal - including stainless steel and copper - from an abandoned textile dye manufacturing facility. The metals “will be put back to use in traditional and non-traditional ways,” according to land developers at the site, which will be known as ReVenture Park.

The ReVenture Park plan involves recovering an estimated total of 750 tons of metal from 15 shuttered industrial buildings located on the 667-acre site. “We are working diligently to ensure as much of it is sold and put back to work as possible,” says Tom McKittrick, president and founder of Forsite Development. “In the first building alone, we estimate we salvaged over 7,000 linear feet of two-inch stainless steel piping that we will use on other projects.”

Most of the buildings also have extensive piping, racking, tanks, and other processing equipment that will be harvested and recycled, according to McKittrick. Once those spaces are cleared, the developers will renovate them into low-cost space marketed to clean energy technology providers and companies.

ReVenture Park developers also are working with UNC-Charlotte art students on a beatification project involving salvaged metal. These students will be transforming some of the salvaged material into metal sculptures to be displayed throughout the site.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also is spotlighting ReVenture Park on its website for being a development site that reuses existing materials rather than building from new materials.

Forsite Development Inc. has retained NELCO Recycling and Aggregate of Mooresville, N.C., to manage the interior demolition and recycling of metals.

Featuring multiple clean-energy projects, ReVenture Park is being designed to advance the Charlotte region’s environmental goals and economic growth by attracting renewable energy and alternative fuel projects.