Windham has received a grant that officials hope will lead to the redevelopment of many of the sites formerly used by the town’s thriving, turn-of-the-century industrial sector, such as the Keddy Mill in South Windham.

At the same time, the town is planning a series of public meetings to talk to residents about the plan for revitalizing South Windham and, specifically, the Keddy Mill. A long-awaited redevelopment project of that site has been put on hold due to escalating costs, some related to environmental cleanup, Stephen Etzel, vice president of Hudson Realty Capital, which owns the site, told the Town Council in March. Town Manager Tony Plante said two or three public meetings will be held some time in June on South Windham revitalization, though the dates have not been finalized.

The grant could help jumpstart that project, and others like it. Town Manager Tony Plante was notified late last week that the town was awarded a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s brownfields general programs fund. The money will be used to identify and assess properties in Windham that are brownfields, sites where expansion, redevelopment or reuse may be hampered by contaminants or pollutants. Once the sites are identified, the town can apply for further programs that help to clean up the sites for future use, Plante said.

“This is a major step in the right direction,” Plante told the Town Council this week.

The grant signifies the start of public process to identify and evaluate potential brownfields, said Tom Bartell, Windham’s economic development director, who helped write the grant. Likely brownfields include former industrial sites, such as the Oriental Powder Co. gun powder producer or the Mallison Falls Manufacturing Co. woolen mill, Bartell said. A 2004 survey identified 33 potential sites. The grant will help determine if that survey is correct, Bartell said.

“There are junkyards, auto repair places, gas stations, industrial places similar to the Keddy Mill, that kind of thing. It is kind of intuitive. These funds are there to go and find out for sure,” he said.

Often, the owners of these sites can’t or won’t invest in the cleanup, at a detriment to the community as a whole, Bartell said. That’s where the grant comes in.

“You may not want to spend the money and that hinders redevelopment,” he said.

The assessment comes in two parts. First, potential sites are tested to see if contaminants are in fact polluting the property. If so, the second phase delves deeper, finding out how widespread the contamination is, what it will take to clean it up, and what the property could be used for in the future.

The Keddy Mill, the redevelopment of which is considered the centerpiece of the South Windham revitalization, has already passed the first phase of the brownfields assessment. Completing the second phase will help town officials and the developer get a clearer idea of what can be done and how much it will cost, Bartell said.

An 18-month-old estimate shows that around $600,000 worth of work is needed to clean up the Keddy Mill site, Etzel, the developer’s representative, said. The grant, if the town chooses, would give the developers a better idea of how to clean up the site, and whether leaving part of the mill or demolishing the entire building is the best course of action, he said.

“The key part of this is, how do we really do this?” said Etzel.

Once assessments are done, the town can then look for funding to help the owners of the sites get rid of the contaminants and pollutants and make way for the future. At that point, Bartell said, the town would likely apply for a revolving loan fund.

Under that system, the town would be awarded up to $1 million that could be loaned at low or no interest to the property owners. Once the loans are repaid, usually in a five-year cycle, they could be used again for other properties, Bartell said.

The Keddy Mill project has been on hold because of unanticipated costs, but a grant the town of Windham received recently may help jump start the project.