Historic Threadmill Updates
The State Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) is awarding a total of $23.8 million in funding in an effort to help Connecticut towns and cities in their efforts to remediate and redevelop vacant and blighted brownfield properties across the state. Stonington was one of 15 municipalities to receive an award.
The Board of Selectman supported an effort, along with Stonington’s Director of Economic and Community Development to put forward an application for $200,000 to conduct assessment activities at the former 5.5-acre industrial site at 21 Pawcatuck Avenue to potentially enable residential use. As residents may recall, helping this property achieve its full potential has been a goal for years. This past Fall a part of the roof caved in, bringing Town officials and First responders together to ensure the safety of the area.
At the same time, the building’s ownership structure changed and the First Selectman was able to work with one of the new owners to bring forward a plan for revitalizing the mill. In partnership with the Planning Department, and with key input from Selectwoman Deb Downie, who volunteered her experience as a Licensed Environmental Professional, key steps were outlined with the goal of saving the historic 1899 mill and creating much needed housing. In addition to much needed investment into the mill structure itself, the site itself is also a known brownfield site. Knowing this, the Stonington team pulled together with the developers to put forward what ultimately became a successful brownfield grant application this Spring. Once the assessment is completed the developer will have a better sense of what the full clean-up costs for the site would be, and the Board of Selectman and Town staff are committed to continuing to work in partnership to help this site realize its full potential.
While this is taking place, the developer will be presenting their initial ideas for redevelopment of the Mill to the Planning and Zoning Commission on July 18th.
Their architects have created an initial design plan for the creation of fifty-eight 1-, 2- and 3-bedroom apartments within the building as well as some minor space to be used as commercial. The developer has also already begun important structural repairs to the interior of the building and plans to replace nearly 150 carrying beams across 5 floors along with approximately 40,000 square feet of subflooring that has been rotted due to years of water damage. Their goal is to have the repairs completed and a new roof installed prior to the end of the year so the building is weatherized, with a much greater chance of saving this historic mill. The public is welcome to join to hear more at the Planning and Zoning meeting on July 18th. More details on that agenda, will be available on the Town website next week (July 10th week).
The below pictures show the previous damage and highlight their potential plan.
