Under the plan, the eight buildings on the site will eventually be replaced by 26 buildings providing a combined 851,000 sf of industrial space.

"I don't think we would have tackled that piece of property without the brownfields designation," says Tom Kemp, president of Kemp-Peyerk Sterling, the Madison Heights company planning the development. "Without it, it would be a lot easier and cheaper for us to go buy farmland, virgin land."

The state Department of Environmental Quality has yet to give its approval for the company's $272,000 plan to clean up chemicals that have contaminated the soil, including quantities of arsenic. Kemp says the demolition and cleanup could begin in February and construction of the project, the Powell Road Industrial Park, would be launched in the spring.

The first structure, a 30,000-sf multi-tenant building could be ready for occupancy next fall. The industrial park would be built in phases over approximately 10 years.

Kemp-Peyerk is a partnership between Kemp, president of a development company, and Chris Peyerk, owner of one of Michigan's largest contractors, Dan's Excavating of Shelby Township. Beyond the costadvantages of developing a brownfield site, the company saw Romeo as a good location because of the recently completed M-53 freeway extension and its position on the suburban fringe.