For nearly two decades, Barr has helped the city of New Brighton, Minnesota, with the New Brighton Exchange, one of the most ambitious and complex brownfields projects in the state. A former dump occupied about half of the eastern portion of the site.
Barr worked with the city on a highly complex design and construction effort that addressed environmental concerns presented by the dump while balancing competing issues such as stormwater management, future development layout, geotechnical concerns, and an important regional sanitary interceptor sewer running through the site.
In the 1960s, one million cubic yards of debris had been placed in a pond and swamp known as Old Miller Dump. Barr designed and oversaw excavation of 20 percent of the dump and consolidation of the remaining materials under a new landfill cap of clean soil. We also designed a landfill-gas-collection system and incorporated it into the cap. The system, which seals gas inside the dump and controls horizontal migration, is being monitored to verify that methane vapors are dissipated safely. Cleanup of the New Brighton Exchange site is complete and most of the area has been redeveloped into five corporate headquarters and a 25-acre residential development.
In its May 2024 “Best Management Practices for Development on or Near Former Dumps” guidance document, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency cited the New Brighton Exchange redevelopment as one of several “Successful Case Studies.”