Sherwood to apply for more funding to clean up tannery site

Published 5:00 am Thursday, July 31, 2025

Sherwood is looking for another half-million dollars to help clean up the former Frontier Leather Tannery site, where the city hopes to build a future public works building.

City Manager Craig Sheldon said if Sherwood receives the funding from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, the city will provide a 25% match of $125,000 to aid in clean-up efforts.

“If the city was successful, the $125,000 would come from other funds and nothing would come from the general fund,” Sheldon said.

The grant money would be combined with a $5 million grant the city received last year from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to clean up a 25-acre piece of property located on the north side of Oregon Street, between Southwest Lower Roy Street and Orland Street.

That property contains buried and exposed tannery hides tanned with chromium and lead. Although the hides are stable, they must be removed from the property if the area is to be developed under a proposal approved by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

The estimate is that 40,000 cubic yards of sediment and hides would have to be excavated, according to city officials.

Sheldon said the city is currently conducting sampling of the tannery site soil to determine how much will have to be removed to comply with DEQ.

“It’s quite a large amount,” he said.

Once that soil is removed and clean soil is brought in, the city can proceed with plans to build a new public works department building.

“In the end, there will be 10 acres of developable land,” Sheldon said.

At the same time, the city is coordinating with Clean Water Services to replace a sewer line that runs through the same property.

Meanwhile, construction of a new public works site is a few years out.

“One of the original plans we looked at, it would be two stories,” said Sheldon, adding that in addition to offices, it would contain a large warehouse.

Once that is completed, the current public works building at 15527 S.W. Willamette St. could open up for residential development under the Old Town Strategic Plan.