BELFAST - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday that Maine will receive $3.8 million in grant funding for environmental assessment and cleanup projects, through the agency’s Brownfields Program.

Among 11 recipients in the state, two are located in Belfast.

The city will receive up to $200,000 for environmental cleanup at 45 Front Street, a former Belfast & Moosehead Lake Railroad property last used by the Belfast Maskers theater group. Congress Street Hill Property LLC was awarded $200,000 for cleanup at the former Waldo County Jail and Sheriff’s office buildings at 45 Congress Street. The corporation was created by County officials in 2012 in order to make the property eligible for EPA funding.

Both sites were the subject of previous EPA Brownfield Assessment grant awards.

Belfast Economic Development Director Thomas Kittredge said Wednesday said the latest grant would help the city make the Front Street property more appealing to potential developers.

The property is not currently for sale and Kittredge said there is no specific plan for it yet. However, he noted that the city’s Downtown and Waterfront Master Plan groups the property with existing small shops and restaurants in an area termed “Restaurant Row.” To this end, Kittredge said the goal would be to have “multiple, small, commercial users that blend in with [similar existing businesses].

“That’s what the current vision is,” he said, “but we don’t know if there’s someone who wants to do that.”

The city might sell it outright, he said, or opt to maintain some control of what happens to the property through contract rezoning.

Before any of that happens, the two buildings on the property would most likely be demolished, Kittredge said.

The larger was a freight house for the B&ML Railroad from 1870 to 1985 and was later home to the Belfast Maskers. A smaller cement structure on the property has served as a locomotive house and storage building.

An environmental assessment of the buildings and land found asbestos materials, lead paint, and fluorescent light fixtures containing PCBs (ballasts) and mercury (bulbs) in the buildings. Petroleum- and solvent-related compounds and some metals were found in the soil, “in pretty low concentrations.” Kittredge said.

The city approved $40,000 in matching funds related to the grant. Kittredge said the $240,000 total is “in the ballpark” for what will be needed to complete remediation at the site.

Kittredge said the city will hire an environmental consulting firm in the next few months to oversee the cleanup project. Work on the property would likely begin in late fall, he said.

The former Sheriff’s Office and jail buildings on Congress Street site will be subject to similar kinds of environmental cleanup.

A notice posted prior to applying for the grant, county officials said cleanup at the Congress Street property would “likely include excavation/capping of petroleum contaminated soils, installation of a soil vapor mitigation system, and/or the abatement of asbestos, lead based paint, and other potential hazardous building materials.”

Ethan Andrews can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com