DRIVE working to make vacant properties available for tenants

DANVILLE — Finding tenants, or buyers for the 100-acre property where Encina’s proposed billion-dollar recycling plant was going to be built is one of many ongoing priorities for DRIVE, an economic development authority located in Danville.

The vacant property remains under lease with Encina, DRIVE CEO Jennifer Wakeman said.

“We have lots of interest in it,” she said. “It’s a good parcel. We are working on an application for a PA SITES grant to hopefully do some civil engineering on it to get it leveled out.”

PA SITES was established to provide grant and loan funding for eligible applicants to develop competitive sites for businesses to relocate or expand within the commonwealth.

“Our thinking at DRIVE is: Here is a section of the property that is technically in a hundred-year flood plain that can be filled so it is no longer in the flood plain,” Wakeman said. “That would basically reduce the time for somebody to put a building on it.

“We had thought about bringing sewers to the site but that was not going to be feasible to do,” she said. “But the property is big and it’s flat and has rail access. It has a lot going for it.”

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