Hartford Business Journal

14 Hartford Business Journal • November 21, 2016 www.HartfordBusiness.com Town to start $33.9M in projects in '17 from page 1 manufacturing-head- quarters facility off Woodland, replacing its long-time, cross- town leased home sandwiched between Cottage Grove Road and Blue Hills Avenue. The local McDon- ald's in Copaco Shop- ping Center recently reopened after an extensive facelift, while just up Cottage Grove Road, the Wen- dy's restaurant is shut for renovations. Seabury Home retirement commu- nity is undergoing a major expansion for which earlier this year it bonded up to $80 million to add new independent- and assisted-living units, skilled-nursing beds and an expand- ed memory-care unit. Two years ago, another in-town retirement com- munity, Duncaster, launched its $10 mil- lion expansion. That's not all. New Jersey devel- oper Calamar has submitted plans for a 138-unit apartment community for ten- ants age 55 and older at 1136 Blue Hills Ave., in the shadow of First Cathedral. Building cost is pegged between $14 million and $18 million. Those are just the tip of Bloomfield's development iceberg, with the town due to launch in 2017 nearly $34 million in taxpayer- approved building projects. Bloomfield Planning Director Jose Giner said the town hired two more building officials this year to keep up with land-use applications. The town generates revenue from building permits and other fees, plus recurring annual income from taxes on the developments. Just a few months into its 2016-2017 fis- cal year, Bloomfield already has doubled the $300,000 in permit fees it budgeted to collect over 12 months, Giner said. A year earlier, the town also surpassed its permit-fees forecast. "We permitted $171 million worth of con- struction just in the last fiscal year,'' Giner said. "That doesn't include the apartments behind Town Hall. That was more than the last six years combined.'' Behind Town Hall, a half-dozen single-fami- ly houses on six acres between Bloomfield and Jerome avenues were razed and ground broken in August for a 215-unit luxury apartment com- munity presently known as 700 Bloomfield Ave. Citizens Bank recently issued a $33.75 million construction loan for the project to Fairfield developer Post Road Residential and partner Carlyle Realty Partners VII L.P. When ready for occupancy by early 2018, rents for one-, two-, and three-bedroom units will average about 900 square feet and rent for $1,400 monthly. Meantime, First Cathedral, one of the region's largest African-American churches, is pursuing a development of its own — 60 units of senior housing near the intersection of Blue Hills Avenue and Cottage Grove Road. Favorable land-use Bloomfield, through Sept. 30, leads sur- veyed Connecticut cities and towns in hous- ing permits, mostly for apartments, with 403 issued vs. 14 granted from January to Sep- tember 2015, according to the state Depart- ment of Economic and Community Develop- ment. Fairfield is the next closest, with 227 permits issued in the first nine months of this year, followed by Simsbury, with 224. Bloomfield's current property tax rate of 36.65 mills, or $36.65 for every $1,000 of assessed value, compares favorably to neighboring com- munities, such as West Hartford's 39.51 mills, Simsbury's 37.12 mills, and Windsor's 31.52 mills. Bloomfield, Simsbury and Windsor also have separate fire-district tax assessments. Griffin Industrial LLC, a major commer- cial landlord with buildings and undeveloped acreage in Bloomfield, singled out the town's transparent land-use review process and sound economic-development blueprint as contributors to its development explosion. "Commercial users need certainty with respect to [land-use policies] in order to select a site, as their decision directs millions of dol- lars of their capital going forward,'' said Griffin Industrial Senior Vice President Tim Lescalleet. "Therefore, they need to have confidence in the municipality where the site is located." George Hermann, president of Windsor Federal Savings, which has branches in the town, said Bloomfield has several things going for it right now. "Bloomfield is a fair, easy and reason- able place to do business,'' Hermann said. "Bloomfield taxes are fair. We have a much improved school system that has developed a strong reputation. Commercial developers recognize this, and they find that the permit- ting process is straightforward." Challenges do exist Not all is rosy. Ace Hardware, in the Amaz- ing Plaza on Park Avenue, is shutting doors after 18 months, citing weak sales traffic. The store is less than 5 miles from The Home Depot and Lowe's Home Improvement center, both in the heavily-trafficked Cottage Grove Road commercial corridor. Landlord Matthew Levy, owner of Amaz- ing and its companion Northeast Plaza, locat- ed about two blocks away on Park Avenue, declined to talk about Ace's exit. But he wel- comed the prospect of more residents in town. "Happy to see it,'' Levy said. "It's good for all the businesses.'' Farther along Park Avenue, in the town's center, the Wintonbury Mall, which several years ago landed in foreclosure, still has empty retail spaces adjacent to a handful of restaurants, shops and a movie theater. The mall, home to Carbone's Kitchen, which is preparing to open a second location in Rocky Hill, and the town green are within walking distance of the apartments going up on Bloomfield/Jerome avenues. Town Manager Philip Schenck said the mall, an anchor in downtown Bloomfield, has a new owner who has stabilized it. An urgent- care facility will soon occupy space there. The risk also exists that Bloomfield will wind up overbuilt with apartments. Before this latest round of development, the town's youngest apartment communities were the 78-unit Mallory Ridge that opened in 2014, and 246-unit The Hawthorne At Gillette Ridge, that bowed in 2004, next door to Cig- na's corporate campus. The town also is home to The 600, a 161- unit '70s-era luxury apartment community at 600 Cottage Grove Road, that for many years housed young executives/professionals working for Cigna predecessor, Connecticut General Insurance Co. and Aetna. Today, The 600's tenants include a number of students attending nearby University of Hartford and University of St. Joseph. Bloomfield has benefitted, Schenck said, from both good planning and good timing with the economy. The town, too, has offered property-tax abatements in some cases to promote development, he said. "The town has reached a point where people recognize the values in Bloomfield,'' Schenck said. Residents have approved, he said, an $11.6 million renovation-expansion of the town's pub- lic works garage, and a $22.3 million replace- ment of its human-services center housed in a former junior high school on Park Avenue. Work on both will begin next summer, Schenck said. Repaving, too, is set to start next year, he said, on Woodland Avenue, a heavily-traveled east-west connector between Wintonbury Ave- nue and Blue Hills Avenue Extension. The town also has collected some $2 million in state/fed- eral grants to begin work next spring on a leg of the East Coast Greenway, stretching from Tariffville Road to Day Hill Road. n Bloomfield's Key Economic Performance Metrics 2015 Average Wages $82,094 Number of Biz Establishments 835 Unemployment Rate 6.3% Average Employment 19,582 S O U R C E : C T D E P T . O F L A B O R Largest Number of CT Housing Permits Issued in 2016 (through September) Housing Permits Municipality Issued Bloomfield 403 Fairfield 227 Simsbury 224 Norwalk 190 New Haven 133 Milford 130 Greenwich 103 Stafford 83 S O U R C E : S T A T E D E P A R T M E N T O F E C O N O M I C A N D C O M M U N I T Y D E V E L O P M E N T (Clockwise from upper left) Two of Bloomfield's newest apartment communities — Mallory Ridge and The Hawthorne At Gillette Ridge — face fresh competition, says Town Planner Jose Giner. P H O T O | S T E V E L A S C H E V E R P H O T O S | H B J F I L E

• Cover