Town Hopes To Market Batchelder

Site For New Industrial Use

By Andrew Gorosko

Having finally gauged the scope of pollution problems at the contaminated Batchelder industrial site in Botsford, the town now plans to begin marketing the Swamp Road “brownfield” property for its eventual industrial reuse and subsequent placement on the town’s property tax rolls.

 First Selectman Herbert Rosenthal said October 31 the town’s study of contamination problems at the 31-acre former aluminum smelting plant provides it with a range of cost estimates for the site’s clean-up, based on the property’s various potential reuses. Brownfields, such as the Batchelder site, are industrially contaminated properties.

The extent and the cost of the clean-up work needed will be based on the specific eventual reuse of the property, Mr Rosenthal said.

A key element of the site’s clean-up will be removing approximately 12,000 tons, or 24 million pounds, of metallic dross piles from the site. Most of the 8,665 cubic yards of metallic dross lies outside the buildings on the site. The industrial site has been abandoned since 1987.

The town paid for the pollution clean-up study, known as a “conceptual remedial action plan,” with $45,000 in loans from the state. Handex of Monroe, an environmental consulting firm, did the clean-up study for the town.

“It’s a long slow process,” Mr Rosenthal said of the town’s having spent almost four years working to find some new use for the contaminated industrial site at 44-46 Swamp Road, near Botsford Hill Road.

Since The Charles Batchelder Company’s financial collapse in the 1980s, the town has not collected any property taxes on the property. No taxes have been paid since 1984. The property, which has an approximately $1.6 million tax-assessed value, would be paying more than $46,000 in property taxes annually. The site holds a 100,000-square-foot building.

In 1997, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) spent about $300,000 to remove certain types of toxic waste from the site, including heavy metals and solvents. Petroleum-based groundwater contamination problems, however, remain there. The EPA fenced off the contaminated site to prohibit access.

The site’s clean-up problem is complicated by the bankruptcy protection that Batchelder was granted by US Bankruptcy Court, and by financial claims that have been filed against the company by its creditors.

Elizabeth Stocker, the town’s community development director, said the DEP has given the town informal approval to market the Batchelder property for its industrial reuse.

The town will market the site with the aid of the state Department of Economic and Community Development and the Connecticut Development Authority. Marketing the site will involve providing some combination of federal, state and local financial incentives for the new owners of the property, which would encourage those owners to acquire the site, clean it, and put it to some new industrial use.

The town wants to make the Batchelder site a viable, productive site, which would generate local property tax revenue, Mr Rosenthal said.

The land is zoned for industrial and commercial uses. It has a rail siding owned the Housatonic Railroad. The flat property is adjacent to Wickes Lumber, a large lumberyard.

The Housatonic Railroad, a Canaan-based railroad that has a spur line on the Batchelder property, has expressed interested in having some industry locate there that would need rail service. CSX Corporation, a major rail firm, also has expressed interest in providing rail service to the site.

Several industrial firms have expressed interest in the property, but they want to know how much money it would cost to clean up the site to bring it to a point where it is suitable for new industrial uses.

The site lends itself to becoming a light assembly complex or a warehouse/distribution center. Parts of an existing 100,000-square-foot industrial building on the site may be reusable.

The site contains a rail spur. It is relatively close to Interstate-84. It is level. It has industrial zoning. Under current zoning regulations, up to 400,000 square feet of enclosed industrial space could exist on the site.

Ms Stocker said using the site for light manufacturing probably would be the highest and best use of the property.

Mr Rosenthal said the town does not want another form “heavy industry,” such as the Batchelder aluminum smelting plant, at the property.

Current zoning for the property would allow light manufacturing, heavy manufacturing, research and development facilities, offices, a distribution complex or warehousing.

 “It’s not going to be easy (redeveloping the site), but we’re certainly further along than we have been,” Ms Stocker said.

Ms Stocker said advertising to market the Batchelder site for its reuse will start in several weeks in real estate publications and on the Internet.