The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded the city of Boston $400,000 in Brownfields grants to clean up two former industrial sites on Columbus Avenue in Roxbury.

The hazardous substance grants will be used to clean up two sites – 1540 and 1542R Columbus Ave. – in the Jackson Square neighborhood.  The Columbus Avenue sites were home to various industrial businesses, including an automobile dealership, a trucking facility and a parking garage, and the grants will be used to remediate metals and petroleum stemming from these historical uses.

“These generous grants from the EPA mean that we can not only ensure the public safety of these sites in our neighborhoods, but we can also begin to revitalize these parcels to create housing, commercial space and a community center in Jackson Square,” Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said in a statement.

The two parcels of city-owned land will be conveyed to Urban Edge, a Boston community development corporation, to develop an affordable mixed-use development called Jackson Commons. The development will create 37 units of housing, 29 of which will be affordable. There will also be community-oriented commercial space on the ground floor. Remediation of the contaminated land and building construction will begin next spring.

The project includes a regulation-sized ice rink that can be covered to act as a turf field during summer, as well as four locker rooms, concessions, an arcade and administrative office space.