Town Gets $500,000 Grant For Technology Park

By John Voket

A little more than two weeks ago, the Newtown Board of Selectmen voted to accept a Capital Improvement Plan that carried over funds to begin work on a proposed technology park on newly acquired parcels off Commerce Drive. Last Monday, that same group approved funding for the first phase of the project, development of a preliminary planning report by a local engineering firm.

And by noon last Wednesday, town and economic development officials were celebrating the awarding of a half-million-dollar grant that First Selectman Herb Rosenthal said will cover most of the costs for establishing what he is now referring to as the Newtown Technology Park.

“The grant was a total and very happy coincidence,” the first selectman said, just a hour or so after receiving the call about the windfall from State Representative Julia Wasserman’s capitol office.

The $500,000 comes in the form of a STEAP grant (Small Town Economic Assistance Program), an initiative, Mr Rosenthal explained, that gives smaller communities strategic funding for targeted economic development projects.

“This is a grant we hastily applied for just a few months ago, and comes from the same program that is funding our Sandy Hook streetscape improvements,” he said. “Thanks to the quick work of Liz Stocker, our community development director, we were able to qualify for this program again.”

Mr Rosenthal said the award came as a surprise just two days after the Board of Selectmen unanimously voted to approve contracting the Monroe-based engineering and land use company Spath-Bjorkland Associates, Inc to complete the first and second phases of the tech park development plan. He said this latest grant would pay for much of the preliminary work to establish the area located between Commerce Drive and Wasserman Way.

“We approved the funding several years ago and have been carrying over the $500,000 in our CIP in anticipation of beginning the project,” he said. “Now we can save that money and reapply it in the future for other projects.”

The first challenge, Mr Rosenthal said, is to attempt to reconfigure two separate parcels, one that was provided to the town specifically for economic development, the other for passive open space. Pointing to a map posted in the selectman’s office, he noted some particular concerns related to the abutting parcels.

Both pieces run roughly northeast to southwest, with the 34.44-acre open space parcel extending along and beside Deep Brook, one of only eight Class 1 trout streams in the state where the fish reproduce and flourish naturally. Mr Rosenthal hopes the engineers from Spath-Bjorkland will devise a way to combine that with the 37.54-acre economic development parcel, and then reconfigure the layout to produce two equivalent east-to-west pieces with corresponding acreage.

By doing that, the first selectman hopes to enhance protection of the stream by increasing the natural buffer of land between the development and the waterway, while at the same time creating a more logical and contiguous layout for the one or more industrial parcels to be developed in the tech park.

This proposed reconfiguration cannot happen, however, without the blessing of the Connecticut Legislature. But Mr Rosenthal believes the necessary authorization will be secured once the engineers complete the report detailing options for the project.

With wetlands flagging already completed by a soil scientist, Mr Rosenthal said the Spath-Bjorkland team should begin developing the scope of the overall project. According to the memo outlining Spath-Bjorkland’s proposal for services thus far, the company’s representatives will first design several layouts for configuring or reconfiguring the two parcels.

Then they will designate potential access ways for the tech park, and perform basic site engineering and macro site development costs, arriving at an estimated final figure for the entire project. The preliminary findings will then be reported to the town’s Economic Development Commission.

The second phase of Spath-Bjorkland’s proposal then leads into preparing the actual subdivision plans, engineering reports, and applications for the eight- or nine-lot tech park. Those plans will be based on boundary and topographical surveys provided by the town, and delivered conforming to Newtown subdivision, inland-wetland, and watercourse regulations.

“Once the conceptual plans are completed, we’ll bring them before the town Planning and Zoning officials for approval,” Mr Rosenthal said. “At that point the full design for the park will go out to bid and we’ll already have that new grant in the bank to pay for the work.”

According to Ms Stocker, that grant was written in such a way that funding can be applied to either the design, construction, and/or marketing of the park. A detailed budget for the grant’s intended use will be provided to the state before they release the funds, she explained.

“This budget template will be part of phase one,” she said.

Ms Stocker said the town’s EDC will be heavily involved with this development, having dedicated two members exclusively to the tech park development.

“They’ll oversee each step of the project, and then be responsible for incorporating the tech park into the town’s overall economic development marketing scope,” she said.

Although Ms Stocker does not expect the parcels to be ready for marketing for at least a year, this does not rule out the possibility that potential tenants will come calling beforehand. And if the right offer is tendered early on, it could influence the overall design of the project.

“It’s very possible that a serious offer could impact our plans as they are developing,” Ms Stocker said. “Since the land will have the same zoning classification as Commerce Park, the parcels can offer a wide range of commercial possibilities.”

She said the plan to develop more smaller parcels fits into the town’s overall economic development plan a little more effectively than if a single larger company occupies all or most of the land.

“Ideally, smaller parcels and diversified usage creates a more stable economic base,” she said. “If you put all your eggs in one basket, and that company eventually decides to leave town, you have a much greater negative economic impact than if you have six, seven, or eight smaller companies.”

This development is particularly attractive to today’s smaller start-up companies who are looking for parcels large enough to support a 20,000–25,000-square-foot operation, she said.

“Some companies are even looking to develop facilities as small as 5,000 to 10,000 square feet,” said Ms Stocker. “I’m constantly getting calls from commercial brokers looking for smaller lots. There’s really a high demand for them.”

In contrast, larger tenant proposals seem to be few and far between.

“Consider the hundred-acre industrial parcel we have in the Hawleyville area off Exit 9 [of I-84]. That was zoned for corporate development in the mid-80s, and there’s been little interest in it over the years,” she said.

“On the other hand, you have a development like Curtis Park off Toddy Hill Road. As soon as that development became available we got two companies that sought and received approval to build there, and there’s another application pending for a third tenant.”