Buoyed by $1.4 million in state aid to remediate water and ground pollution, a partnership of developers said Thursday that it expects to break ground next year on 175 new apartments, several retail spaces and a medical office building in Plainville’s town center. Connecticut has now put a total of $2.
6 million into cleaning up the 15-acre property that was once the headquarters of the now-defunct White Oak Construction. A partnership of Manafort Brothers Inc. and the Newport Realty Group said Thursday that once the last stage of environmental work is completed next year, contractors will begin on the ambitious job.
The project is a major boost in a town where business leaders have been frustrated for more than 20 years as White Oak’s two-story buildings with nearly 50,000 square feet of space have loomed – empty and boarded-up – over the prime intersection in the town center. “We see this as a once in a lifetime opportunity to spur some belief in development in our core downtown area and truly see it as a catalyst for further public and private investment,” Economic Development Coordinator Cal Hauburger said at a brief press conference outside the building. “For the past two decades this property has sat vacant, under-utilized and contaminated in our core downtown area without contributing to our tax roll and just being a general eyesore for our community,” he said.
The funding for Plainville was part of a $26.3 million package of brownfield remediation grants that will help clean 130 acres of contaminated property in 22 Connecticut communities this year. The circumstances vary from town to town, but in each case there are polluted properties or contaminated buildings that can’t be redeveloped without a costly environmental cleanup – an expense that private developers won’t accept.
Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz said the state funding is awarded to communities that can demonstrate a significant likelihood of redevelopment, whether that’s an adaptive reuse of existing building or demolition and new construction.
The goal is to produce new manufacturing, commercial and office space along with more housing, all on properties that are essentially abandoned and harming the appearance of the surrounding neighborhood. In Plainville, that will mean 175 apartments, overwhelmingly studios and one-bedrooms. About 10% will be set aside as affordable, with the rest at market rate.
In addition, Newport Realty and Manafort plan to remodel the first floor along West Main Street into commercial spaces, and create about 15,000 square feet of medical office space as well. “There’s going to be regional economic development because Plainville is a hub for this whole area,” Bysiewicz said. “We know our state needs approximately 100,000 new units of housing and we also have about 100,000 job openings.
There’s no secret about why those two numbers are almost exactly the same,” she said. “If we want our state to grow and our economy to grow, we need new housing to be built. We’re excited about taking vacant, under-utilized buildings and properties and repurposing them for both housing and retail.
” Mark Lovley and Tony Valenti, partners in Newport Realty, told Bysiewicz that they see a migration into Connecticut based on tenants and buyers for the new apartment and single-family home projects they’ve done recently. “I’ve been doing this 39 years, and last year was a record year for seeing people move back to Connecticut from Florida, the Carolinas, New Hampshire, Maine and upstate New York. They’re coming back,” Lovley said.
“We see it with our homes and our apartments: People are moving back,” Valenti said. “We have 50 or so (new) apartments in the Berlin market, I can go through: Tennessee, Texas, a couple just moved back from Chicago, several from Florida. Three years ago, the state put up nearly $1.
2 million to clean up the building and parking area where White Oak had stored trucks and other heavy equipment. The new grant will resolve remaining ground water and soil contamination. The current plan is for about half of the 15-acre property to be put aside as protected open space, possibly with a link from the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail.
Rep. Francis Cooley, R-Plainville, thanked Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration for its support of the White Oak project.
“We have a beautiful little downtown area and this project is going to help revitalize it,” Cooley said. “The housing component is important. We’re also providing economic development.
” Bysiewicz noted that the Lamont Administration has another $25 million round of brownfield grants to award later this year, and is currently taking applications..
