Newtown Maximizing Economic Development Marketing With New Partnership

By John Voket

Newtown is among just a few communities maximizing its potential for attracting new business development, as well as industries poised to relocate or expand in western Connecticut.

By being the overlapping community straddling a state regional Economic Development District and a possible future EDD, Newtown will likely benefit from state or federal grants passing to both groups. Those grants may be designated to lock regional or strategic development projects, or to enhance regional marketing strategies to entice businesses to the town and region.

Nearly a decade ago, during the Herb Rosenthal administration, Newtown was invited to be part of a Housatonic Valley Development Partnership. But that regional initiative ended several years later when the funding stream underwriting its administration dried up, according to Newtown Community Development Director Elizabeth Stocker.

But Newtown did retain its position as the farthest northwestern member of a Naugatuck Valley development agency that created a Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS), and eventually became an official EDD.

Now, as a result of a few networking opportunities, Newtown is engaged in a second regional effort to create a CEDS for the cluster of communities making up the Housatonic Valley Council of Elected Officials. Ms Stocker said that Newtown is not permitted to be part of two EDDs, but it can be part of two CEDS.

And while this may add up to little more than alphabet soup to many Newtowners, Ms Stocker believes it spells big potential for Newtown, which is now in a perfect position at the center point of two large and intersecting economic development zones.

“This all really stared in 2010 with a few casual conversations, a few meetings, and some informal networking,” Ms Stocker told The Bee this week. “But it really developed traction when Connecticut passed a public act to reward towns in the form of grants for developing regional strategies for attracting, retaining, and growing commercial projects.”

Long Overdue

Ms Stocker said 70 percent of Connecticut municipalities operate under an organized economic unit, making the move to organize the western Connecticut region long overdue. The new group will include Newtown as well as Bethel, Bridgewater, Brookfield, Danbury, New Fairfield, New Milford, Redding, Ridgefield, and Sherman.

“The recent recession has been wake-up call to all of us,” Ms Stocker said in a release about the CEDS. “While western Connecticut has always demonstrated superior economic performance comparatively to the state and country, we need to engage the private and public sectors in a unified approach to economic development in western Connecticut to ensure that our region continues to flourish in the future.”

Greater Danbury Chamber of Commerce President Stephen Bull and Harold Kurfehs of Coldwell Banker Commercial Real Estate have been hosting monthly meetings to plan fundraising for CEDS development in private and public sectors. The group will retain a consulting firm that will meet all federal and state requirements for regional economic development planning and will provide insight to each municipality for its own planning.

As a precursor to the process, the group has conducted four focus group sessions in cooperation with Northeast Utilities to identify important themes and topics for further study in the CEDS development.

With a CEDS in hand, the group can identify the necessary regional marketing to promote its strengths. The marketing will encompass branding the region, developing a website, and supporting materials to promote the region’s advantages to potential corporate and investor groups.

Anticipated Grant

Ms Stocker said an anticipated seed grant from a federal grant will start the ball rolling.

“We’ve applied to the federal government for $60,000,” Ms Stocker said. “We’ve also got a commitment for $15,000 from the council of elected officials, $2,500 from the regional commercial brokers alliance, and a $10,000 pledge from Union Savings Bank.”

Savings Bank of Danbury has also promised a grant toward what Ms Stocker estimates will be an $80,000 to $125,000 cost to complete the CEDS.

“I expect the process will take 12 to 18 months once the consultant is on board,” Ms Stocker said. Members of the group will be contacting other financial institutions and regional industries to solicit any additional funding the group will need to complete the CEDS.

“This just marks a new way of creating partnerships, and working together toward the same end,” she said. Ms Stocker said that each town that receives any eventual assistance, or that attracts or retains commercial development because of the CEDS, will be celebrated by all its members.

When asked about the type of regional projects the group might target, Ms Stocker pointed to the existing and future planned extension of a major sewer line in Hawleyville. That sewer line has already contributed to the development of the complex that is now Maplewood Senior Living, and the 96 condos in the Liberty at Newtown community on Mount Pleasant Road.

That extension also spurred, and continues to draw, new development projects to the Stony Hill area of Bethel, and the Newtown Road / Route 6 corridor into Danbury where a Target retail store was built several years ago.

“You see all that growth in Stony Hill as a result of just having that sewer line,” Ms Stocker said. “That is a good example of a development project that benefits the regional economy.”

On a smaller scale, Ms Stocker said the Sandy Hook streetscape initiative and a related water line extension could provide added incentive for a growing company to relocate from another region or state, or a new commercial entity to establish itself in Newtown.