RADFORD, Va. – The foundry in Radford was a huge economic driver for the city for decades, but since closing years ago, the property has sat vacant.
“This was an area with 1,000 plus employees. They all, for the most part, were part of Radford’s community,” said Abram Williams, an EDA member, business owner, and local resident.
In 2024, the city received a $3.5 million grant to breathe life into the property. Since the grant was awarded, it’s been all hands on deck to get what was an overgrown mess under control.
“We’ve been very busy here,” said Kim Repass, economic developer for the city. “We have hired a company to come in and kind of bulldoze a lot of the foliage that was bush hog a lot of the small trees and shrubbery that was here that has just grown over the past 10 years.”
Over the last six months, crews were out working to cut back the brush and remove hundreds of tons of contaminated soil.
“They came in and removed about 375 tons of contaminated soil,” Repass said.
She said while they removed tons of dirt, testing showed it wasn’t as contaminated as originally believed.
“It was exciting for us to hear that the soil wasn’t really as bad as what I think people anticipated it was,” said Repass.
Now that the contaminated soil has been removed, the next step is to remove all of the concrete.
“That’s about 250,000 square feet of concrete,” Repass said.
A longtime resident of Radford, Abram Williams, said he’s been helping with the property. He said seeing work get done to get this land back is exciting for everyone and the amount of potential for this property is huge.
“A home run to me is just a couple hundred jobs,” Williams said. “Whatever comes in here can be the next part of Radford’s economy.”
Repass said the plan is to get more crews out this spring to start with the removal of the concrete.
