Mayor Bloomberg was in the neighborhood today, launching the country’s first municipally-run brownfield clean up program. The program, which targets “lightly contaminated” sites, gives developers liability protection in addition to a clean development site.

The City chose 456 Grand Street, at the triangle that intersects Grand, Keap and Borinquen, and which is to be the site of a 6-story apartment building with ground-floor commercial, as the location to launch the program. This is the same site that was supposed to have broken ground – either as a retail or a residential development – almost exactly a year ago.