The Manchester Citizens Corp. yesterday received a $275,000 state grant toward redeveloping a vacant 4.3-acre lot in the North Side neighborhood.

Twenty-six new homes are proposed for what is now a massive field of weeds and cracked concrete. The site served several factories over many decades, including an electric manufacturer and a steel operation.

The grant from the Growing Greener fund will pay for remediation of heavy metals, said Tom Hardy, executive director of Manchester Citizens.

On the site yesterday, Betty Ralph, president of the board of Manchester Citizens and an activist in the neighborhood for more than 50 years, told a crowd of about 25, "I can't believe I lived to see Steel City Electric belonging to the Manchester Citizens Corporation."

Kathleen McGinty, secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection, presented the corporation with a ceremonial check as funders, developers, residents and city, county and other state officials looked on.

One was county Chief Executive Dan Onorato, who grew up on Sheffield Street. Another was developer Mark Schneider, who in 1980 became the first director of the Northside Leadership Conference.

Mr. Hardy said: "It's time to reconnect this land to the neighborhood. I'm particularly happy to have a private developer" as a partner.

Fourth River Development and the citizens council will share the project 50-50, said Mr. Schneider, who formed Fourth River with two partners this spring.

The managing partner, Mr. Schneider, was last president of The Rubinoff Co., which developed Summerset at Frick Park, on another brownfield, and Washington's Landing on Herr's Island.

He described the look of the proposed North Side housing as "like Summerset at Frick Park but with a Manchester vernacular."

Manchester, a Victorian-era community, is the only neighborhood that has been deemed entirely historic by the city.

He estimated the homes will be priced around $250,000, but the total price tag of the development has not been determined.

The site is separated from the North Side's main postal facility by railroad tracks. It is bounded by Sedgwick, Juniata and Fulton streets and Columbus Avenue. Juniata, now a dead end halfway on its way toward Fulton, will be opened back up. That will require that a baseball field be reconfigured, said Earl Coleman, a resident of Adams Street and member of the citizens group.

"I used to live at the end of Juniata Street," said Mr. Coleman, "and I remember as a kid hearing the stamping plates at the steel factory on this site. It's exciting to think it'll be something good again, and that I could live there."

The city's Urban Redevelopment Authority and the Northside Community Development Fund, a partner of National City Bank, loaned Manchester Citizens $400,000 and $200,000 respectively to buy the land and pay for architectural plans.

Mr. Onorato said the county is due to get between $105 million and $110 million in Growing Greener money this fiscal year, much of it within the purview of the Department of Environmental Protection.

"We probably have more brownfields than any county in the state," he said, calling the site in Manchester "one of the biggest eyesores, but one of the biggest assets."