Four Hartford homes to be relocated as CT Children's Hospital expands into Frog Hollow neighborhood

Emily DiSalvo

HARTFORD — Four homes in Hartford's Frog Hollow neighborhood, including three that are deemed historic, will be relocated to allow for expansion of Connecticut Children's Hospital.

The City Council approved a resolution allowing the city to transfer four other blighted and vacant properties in the neighborhood to Southside Institution Neighborhood Alliance Inc. so the land can be used to house the displaced homes. The timeline of the relocation is unclear because the resolution was referred to the Planning, Economic Development and Housing Committee for consideration. 

"There was a lot of discussion, a lot of engagement between Connecticut Children's and the neighborhood as these plans were being developed, and I think that the NRZ (neighborhood revitalization zone), Connecticut Children's, and SINA are working together to see that these properties are relocated, while at the same time allowing for the expansion of a really important institution in our community," said Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin in an interview with CT Insider.

In May, Connecticut Children's broke ground on a $326 million clinical tower and a parking garage with 910 spaces built by LAZ and leased by the hospital. 

The expansion will bring over 350 jobs to the area and allow the hospital to offer services that some families are leaving the state for, according to Connecticut Children's Chief Operating Officer Bob Duncan.

"We've held many meetings over the past 18 months with the neighborhood groups, with various historic commission people like that, to understand what their needs are and how we can meet both the community's needs and be able to provide the level of care we need to provide for our patients and families," Duncan said. "And so through those meetings, we understood the importance of these houses and the historic value."

Marcus Ordoñez, co-chairman of the Frog Hollow NRZ, said the neighbors are relieved the homes, which are located on the corner of Lincoln and Washington streets, will be relocated and not demolished. 

"We don't want to lose more housing stock in the neighborhood," Ordoñez said. "So that was a concern of ours."

Bill Hosley, a Hartford-area preservation advocate, said it is uncommon for the city to do anything but demolish historic buildings. He said the relocation is a "gesture in the right direction of caring" and "a little different than what we usually see."

"There's never been a case where anything that was in the crosshairs wasn't destroyed if there was two cents on the other side at stake," Hosley said. "It's appalling."

The resolution put before the City Council states that the homes may become new homeownership opportunities. Ordoñez said the neighborhood is very focused on making sure the relocated homes are occupied.

"These parcels will then be utilized by SINA for relocation of the historic structures as homeowner-occupied residences, or alternatively to provide other homeownership opportunities on those sites," the resolution reads. 

American Rescue Plan Act funds will go toward the rehabilitation of the homes, including preparing the site and building foundations, according to Melvyn Colon, executive director at SINA. 

SINA will also be responsible for getting all of the necessary permits for the new plots of land and the construction. 

"SINA has been a trusted partner in the past to create homeownership housing in the neighborhood, and when we build, even the new construction, we try to respect the historical context of the neighborhood and reflect that in the design of the houses," Colon said. 

Ordoñez said the hospital has been communicative to the neighborhood throughout the process, and while opinions on the expansion, particularly the new parking garage, are mixed, he said overwhelmingly people support the mission.

"Being able to care for children's medical needs ... it is awesome that they're able to do that and expand there in terms of needing the parking, which the garage is going in across the street," Ordoñez said. "That was a concern for the neighborhood. But again, (Connecticut Children's) gauged the neighborhood."

The parking garage will allow families to park and access the hospital quickly without circling around looking for street parking, Duncan explained. 

"None of us want more parking garages," Duncan said. "That's the reality, but unfortunately, the reality is also that children and families need access to care, and they need it in a convenient way. And so a parking garage is part of that."

For CT towns struggling to deal with flooding, help is on the way

Jan Ellen Spiegel

High water, high anxiety

Last summer made it clear that flooding is one of the greatest risks the Northeast faces from climate change. Warm air and oceans, along with sea level rise, mean more intense storms and floods — this summer, the summer of 2021 and likely summers in the future.
The Fifth National Climate Assessment, released earlier this month, specifically noted extreme precipitation and flooding as a key climate change issue for the Northeast.
This is the last of a four-part CT Mirror series examining the impact of flooding on communities. In the first story, we looked at how regulations are changing to deal with more water. In the second, we looked at how flooding affects the shoreline. In the third, we examined how inland areas are coping with floodwaters. Today, how towns with little or no expertise in dealing with the extremes of climate change can get help.

On a blue-sky, not-a-raindrop-in-sight October afternoon, Stephen White surveyed the rain garden his team had just about completed in Town Center Park in Hamden.

“Garden” may be understating it.

It’s big — 2.5 acres. It was conceived to handle drainage of more than 96 million gallons of stormwater a year from more than 73 acres of watershed up the hill near Hamden’s downtown. Its purpose is to keep the rest of the park from flooding, especially in summer, when the huge adjacent events area can get too muddy to use. It also filters out contamination that the water picks up from streets and other surfaces.

A large pipe at one end empties into a ditch that drains into a retention pond, surrounded by newly planted water-absorbing trees and native plants — with more to come — and fitted with rock drainage areas.

Even though it was only half-finished when the July floods hit, the pond area did exactly what it was supposed to.

“It’s never overflowed. It’s all stayed within the footprint,” said White, who is Hamden’s town engineer. “Ever since then, this whole pool has just had water constantly because it’s been raining.”

The project is actually one of more than two dozen recommended to Hamden by an entity called the Stormwater Corps. The corps is actually a two-semester set of undergraduate or graduate classes at the University of Connecticut that includes sending students right into local communities to figure out what nature-based solutions — also known as green infrastructure, like rain gardens — they can use to deal with stormwater impacts from climate change. Municipalities receive a report detailing what they can do, where they can do it and the potential results.

Best of all, the program is free.

For towns with little or no expertise in dealing with the extremes of climate change — or small staffs, or little money, or all of the above — a resource like Stormwater Corps can be invaluable. It can also help municipalities substitute green infrastructure for some of the big, traditional, so-called gray stormwater infrastructure, like drains, sewers, pump stations and bridge replacements, which is often prohibitively expensive.

Flooding and stormwater are cited as the top concerns in a recent needs assessment conducted in the coastal zone around the whole of Long Island Sound. That has been underscored by relentless extreme rains that started this summer and are now predicted into the winter.

But Stormwater Corps is not the only resource for these towns. In addition to a number of nonprofits whose missions include facilitating flooding remediation projects and funding sources from government and others, communities now have access to grant writing support, resilience training and planning assistance. Perhaps most controversially, there’s now a vehicle for municipalities to essentially help themselves: stormwater authorities, also referred to as stormwater utilities.

Stormwater authorities: New London

Stormwater authorities generally work this way: Residences, commercial entities, tax-exempt properties — basically anything with a physical footprint — are assessed fees that go into a fund, which is then used solely for infrastructure that addresses all manner of stormwater issues. Yes, it costs residents money. Will it work? Just ask New London.

“We generate about $1.4 million a year in revenue that strictly supports and is dedicated to the stormwater utility costs associated with maintenance, permit compliance, any kind of capital work that we need to bond — anything like that,” said Joseph Lanzafame, who’s been the city’s director of public utilities for 14 years. “It’s been very successful for us.”

New London is five years in, which predates the 2021 authorizing legislation to let all municipalities in the state establish such stormwater authorities.  Despite a years-long campaign to get the legislature to do that, only one other municipality — New Britain — has followed, though another one or two and a couple of Councils of Government are looking into it.

Lanzafame said being able to count on general fund money to deal with the many flooding issues the city faced just wasn’t working. So New London asked for and was granted permission to run a pilot project. Essentially, it’s still going.

To be clear, it’s a fee, not a tax; it’s not tied to property value. What it is tied to is the impervious cover on a property. That’s the hard surfaces like roofs, paved driveways, patios — the areas where water cannot be absorbed.

New London charges $7.50 per 1,000 square feet of impervious cover, which is billed quarterly. “I would say the average resident in New London for the average house in New London pays between $30 to $60 a year,” Lanzafame said.

Five years later, with that dedicated funding stream, the city has just about worked through its 30-year backlog of problems and projects. While it’s helped alleviate persistent flooding in areas of the city, it has also been used to fix stormwater runoff problems that had persistently kept the city out of compliance with state regulations. Most of those regulations deal with stormwater quality. But when that’s addressed, the stormwater quantity that often causes flooding also improves.

The next push in New London will include green infrastructure projects, some of which were recommended by a Stormwater Corps team.

“We’re still in recovering-from-the-years-of-neglect mode,” Lanzafame said. “But I do believe that it raised a lot of awareness in things that we can do or ask others to do to try to help lessen the impact of development on the flooding issues that we’re having.”

To that end, Lanzafame said, the city has added green infrastructure and stormwater mitigation requirements to development projects. He’s finding many developers now are going even beyond what they have to do.

New Britain

After five storms with significant flooding this summer alone, New Britain is not second-guessing its decision to implement a stormwater utility, which went live less than a year and a half ago. Mark Moriarty said he hadn’t seen anything like this summer in his 18 years as public works director.

“Not even close,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be a long-duration storm. It could be a short duration, high-intensity storm.”

New Britain’s utility runs a little differently than New London’s. Residential assessments are based on the square footage of homes; commercial properties are based on their impervious cover. It’s designed to bring in about $1.8 million.

Already the utility has allowed the city to address two of its most persistent flooding problems. It closed the funding gap for a project around Overlook Avenue and McKinley Drive. And it will allow them to do a $7 million project on Allen Street that’s been waiting for years.

Asked whether any of the infrastructure work now in the pipeline would have happened without a stormwater utility in place: “No way,” he said. “There’s no way I would be able to get $1.8 million a year out of the tax base effectively and guaranteed every year. It just wouldn’t happen.”

But few additional municipalities are interested right now, though the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection notes that a number of the 17 communities that received its 21 Climate Resilience Fund grants in June would be using the cash to address flooding.

Only two, however, planned to specifically assess the feasibility of a stormwater authority. One was the city of West Haven. The other was the Capital Region COG, one of two COGs looking into authorities.

CRCOG Executive Director Matt Hart said he’ll use his $250,000 to hire a consultant to look at the region’s infrastructure and ask them to specifically address in their recommendations stormwater authority feasibility for the region as a whole and for individual communities. If anything comes of it, even starting an authority would be years away, to say nothing of the stormwater and flooding projects themselves.

DEEP is aware of the enthusiasm gap.

Raising interest

Graham Stevens, bureau chief of water protection and land reuse, said the department’s plan includes more energetic outreach to communities.

“What we want to do in our reaching out to municipalities is find out what are the barriers to adopting a stormwater authority and how can the state reduce those barriers,” he said.

That means learning from Danbury, which tried to do it and failed, as well as from New London’s and New Britain’s successes. DEEP’s intent is to provide the technical assistance based on the needs and barriers communities say they have. That could mean providing model ordinances or contracts they can use with consulting firms.

Barrier No. 1, of course, is convincing a town’s residents that the fee for a stormwater authority is not a tax and that it’s worth paying.

“Some people will call it a tax,” Stevens said. “Maybe they wouldn’t if they understood what the benefits were. And I think that’s something that we need to be thinking about — how do we message that there are benefits to living in a town with a stormwater authority?

“I think there needs to be more outreach to the public to explain what these authorities can potentially do, how it could benefit them.”

For instance, it can be used to maintain infrastructure, freeing up money in a town’s general fund for other purposes.

“It’s not that much money, and your fee is going directly to the department that’s working on the problem,” said Bill Lucey, Long Island soundkeeper at Save the Sound. “It’s like paying your electric bill or your water bill or your sewer bill. It’s paying your pollution bill.”

Save the Sound is among several nonprofits working with communities to help them plan and fund green infrastructure to handle flooding and stormwater. While noting that authorities provide “beautiful matching dollars for federal and state infrastructure grants,” he conceded that an authority might wind up being used more for big-ticket gray infrastructure.

Stevens at DEEP also admitted that could happen, in spite of the state’s and environmental organizations’ push and even incentives for more nature-based solutions to flooding.

“I think it should be both gray and green,” Stevens said.

DEEP is already planning to start a matching-fund program to help communities with the match that’s necessary for most federal grant programs.

But it can take a year or more to get a stormwater authority up and running, and lead and construction times are long for large gray infrastructure projects. So green infrastructure projects can buy communities some smaller-scale flooding relief faster.

A new resource

Municipalities close to the shoreline now have a new resource to help with that: the Sustainable and Resilient Communities Work Group, launched in late 2021.

The group is a joint state and federal operation through the Long Island Sound study. The first work it did was the needs assessment that identified flooding and stormwater as the top concerns. Those concerns were followed by sea level rise, coastal flooding, extreme weather and storms and water quality — lots of water. Shoreline areas face it in two directions — from coastal flooding due to sea level rise and storms and inland flooding from heavy rain.

The focus of the program is to help communities address these issues by providing multiple levels of assistance. Grant writing assistance is underway, with a second round coming up. A resilience planning support program is also underway, and there are training programs, field trips and an annual workshop. Working with the U.S. Geological Survey, it plans to provide a compound flood risk model to help towns understand the interaction of the bi-directional water risks they face, said Deb Abibou. She handles western Connecticut as one of the five extension professionals running the program.

The problem overall is the familiar one — that communities just don’t have the resources, personnel or knowledge to tackle the flooding effects of climate change on their own.

“A lot of times, there’s difficulty with accessing information. People aren’t sure where to go for the best expertise or other resources they might need,” she said. “We’re putting together a resource hub website to deal with that.” The hub is expected to be up in December.

They’re also trying to facilitate better coordination among cities and towns. The mix of private and public properties often hamper that. Small towns are often more isolated, and local governments and nonprofits doing resilience work can find themselves at cross-purposes. “Towns want to know what their neighbors are doing,” Abibou said.

Back in Hamden, town engineer Stephen White reported that the new rain garden handled the two rainy weekends that followed just fine. The town has three similar projects in the pipeline.

Given that his department and public works helped the town save nearly half the $700,000 cost of the park project by doing the design and building in-house, and the town just picked up a cool $567,500 to develop and design a pump station replacement and some green infrastructure, he’s psyched to do it again.

He admits designing a pump station and watershed plan will take quite a while and may require technical knowledge and software that he doesn’t have in house right now. But he’s going to be hiring an assistant town engineer and that may fill in some gaps.

“If I paid engineers to design it and then pay the contractor to build it, I would have never been able to do it,” White said. “We would have blown our entire budget just in one project.”

Wilton looks at possibility of bonding the cost of over $100 million in school improvements

Erin Kayata

WILTON — The town is examining different ways it could fund more than $100 million in needed school repairs across three of the district’s buildings.

Outgoing First Selectwoman Lynne Vanderslice explained the possible options at a joint meeting of the Board of Selectman, the Board of Finance and the Board of Education on Nov. 27. The three boards met together to hear more about the scope of the needed repairs and how the town can move forward in paying for them.

One of the ideas for the funding included the possibility of bonding the project for up to 20 years, with expected grand list growth helping to offset the costs. Vanderslice said the growth in the town’s grand list from multifamily projects and the ASML expansion will likely bring in over $1 million per year in new property taxes, less than the cost of projected new students. 

The decision to bond these projects would not impact the budget immediately, she said.

“This debt is not hitting until fiscal year 2026,” she said. “When you approve something in May 2024, you're not paying it until 2026.”

Among other options, Vanderslice also proposed creating a school and municipal building fund for the town and transferring revenue favorability and the town’s unused annual 1 percent budget reserve to the fund.

Whatever the decision, the town must decide how to fund the project and who should manage the funding, said Vanderslice, who first warned the town in October of the looming large price tag for school building repairs.  

“(Coming to) that agreement about who’s responsible for what so we can go in (to the budget cycle) knowing what we’re responsible for is a critical path,” said Frank Smergilio, the town's director of public works.

Erik Kaeyer, a principal with KG + D Architects, went through some of the repairs needed mostly for Cider Mill School, Middlebrook School and Wilton High School. On average, these buildings are about 60 years old and have not seen major repairs in 24 years, though many have corrected minor issues over the years, he said.

The estimated total cost of the repairs comes in at about $132.1 million with an expected $26.77 million in state aid, leaving about $105.4 million in costs for the taxpayers, according to the town. Some of these projects, including those related to roof replacement, code violations and energy conservation, are eligible for state grants.

There are about $10.4 million in priority one work, which focuses on anything compromising the infrastructure of the building. The priority one projects include exterior repairs, such as roof fixes as well as plumbing, HVAC and electrical work. 

“There’s a lot of elements there that affect student life,” Kaeyer said. “As important as those are, the first focus had to be on health and life safety and the exterior envelope to make sure there aren't any problems outside.”

The remaining $122 million in proposed repairs will correct health and safety issues and then age/code-related updates. The estimates for these costs are based on current data, including annual 4 percent increases in the costs of construction.

New Canaan Police Department moves to temporary home for 2 years during $29M station overhaul

Mollie Hersh

NEW CANAAN — The New Canaan Police Department is moving into its temporary home for the next two years as the town prepares to kick off renovations in its once and future home in the next few weeks.

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On Dec. 4, the New Canaan Police Department will officially be relocated to the former Board of Education building at 39 Locust Ave., according to a press release from the town.

The 97-year-old police station on South Avenue will be undergoing renovations to modernize its facilities — including making the building conform with Americans with Disabilities Act accessibility requirements, upgrading energy efficiency and updating building safety enhancements. 

The building was last renovated in 1981.

Police Building Committee Chairman Bill Walbert said everything is on track should the public need any police services come Monday.

“Hopefully the community will be very excited when they get a fully refurbished police building,” Walbert said.

During the renovation, the South Avenue building will be closed to the public until work is completed, currently slated to finish in late 2025. Construction is scheduled to break ground the morning of Dec. 14, Walbert said.

The entire project will cost about $29 million, including $20 million for construction, $2 million for the relocation, about $2 million for contingency and about $5 million for additional costs.

“Our work is really just beginning,” Walbert said. “We’re likely to get surprises. We just hope that none of the surprises are too costly or beyond the scope or would set us back.”

Parking for the temporary location will be the municipal parking lot on Locust Avenue or on the street.

Contact information for the police department will remain the same during construction. For non-emergencies, call 203-594-3500, and call 911 for emergencies.

Groton Council OKs Added $1.47M for Sutton Park Renovations

Brendan Crowley

GROTON — The Town Council has approved another $1.47 million for renovations to Sutton Park, bringing the total budget allocated, primarily toward updating the skate park, to about $2.5 million. 

On Tuesday, councilors were in agreement about improving the park, but there were differing opinions regarding the extent of the work and the timing of the renovations. 

Councilor David McBride, who abstained from the 8-0 vote of approval, said he worried the town was depleting its capital projects fund halfway through the fiscal year.

“I think we could be impacting the next Town Council by not allowing them to have appropriate [capital improvement] funds for the seven months remaining in the year,” McBride said.

In its budget for fiscal year 2022, the council included $1.05 million for Sutton Park renovations — $850,000 from American Rescue Plan funds and another $200,000 from the state’s local capital improvement program.

The funds were originally meant to upgrade the skate park, install new lights and replace the playground. However, following public feedback, additional desired changes and increased labor and materials costs were incorporated into the plan, hiking the price tag to about $4.15 million. Town Manager John Burt said the park improvements are meant to be a long-term plan and will not be completed all at once.

At a Committee of the Whole meeting earlier this month, the council moved forward with a $665,466 bid for basic site improvements like paving and plantings, along with the nearly $1.75 million worth of renovations to the skate park — $176,000 for lighting and $1.57 million for the skating area.

Burt said the town would also look for alternative bids for the playground, which was estimated to cost $740,552.

On Tuesday, the council approved another $1.47 million for the project — $135,000 from the LoCIP program and $1.33 million from the town’s Capital Projects Fund, for a total project cost of $2.42 million between the basic renovations and skate park work. 

Burt said there would be enough left in the fund to potentially build $200,000 locker rooms for the police department, adding that he felt comfortable with the town spending a large amount of its capital fund. But McBride said he was still concerned the town could need that money throughout the rest of the year.

McBride proposed postponing the decision until the new council was seated, or lowering the amount taken from the capital improvements fund by removing two sections of work on the skate park totaling $542,400. Both of McBride’s proposals were rejected.

Counselors Juliette Parker and Bruce Jones both argued it would be cheaper in the long run to upgrade the entire skate park at once because of the rising costs of materials and labor. Jones also said he was opposed to postponing the vote because he wanted the park to be an accomplishment of the current council.

“I think it’s just important for us to close this chapter out and make a statement that we can do good things for the community,” Jones said. “And we have the funds to do it, and I think the will and desire and support of the community behind it.”

The appropriation still needs approval from Groton’s Representative Town Meeting.

Affordable Housing Fund

On Tuesday, the Town Council also approved the creation of an Affordable Housing Trust Fund to help build new housing or make existing housing more affordable with down payment assistance, among other programs.

The fund was recommended by the town’s 2022 affordable housing plan as a way to hold money from town appropriations, grants or donations. The council approved putting $41,000 in the fund, which Groton received from selling the Colonel Ledyard School to Bellsite Development, which plans to remodel the building into 65 apartments.

Burt said the fund doesn’t need approval from the RTM, but any program the council creates using that money would require approval from both bodies.

Colchester Voters OK Added $1.5M For Senior Center Project

Emilia Otte

COLCHESTER — Another $1.5 million for the senior center building project was overwhelmingly approved by voters in a referendum on Tuesday, resolving the town’s yearlong attempt to cover the looming shortfall.

The additional funds include approximately $32,000 in federal coronavirus relief funds, a $575,000 donation from the estate of Stephen Bendas and $892,300 in additional bonding, increasing the total project budget from $9.5 million to $11 million. 

The project has been short on funds since October 2022, when it was revealed costs would rise.  After making some reductions, the town voted to make up the shortfall using the $575,000 donation and additional funds from Colchester’s Unassigned Fund Balance.

Several town officials, however, argued that residents should decide whether to spend the additional money on the senior center. Selectman Jason LaChapelle sued the town to prevent it from entering into a contract with BRD Builders. But after a judge ruled in favor of the town in late December 2022, the Board of Selectmen approved an $8.625 million contract with the firm in February. 

At the time, then-First Selectman Andreas Bisbikos said he supported going to referendum to assign the money from the Bendas estate to the project. 

As of mid-November, $9.42 million of the $9.5 million project budget was already encumbered, without accounting for furnishings and fixtures or contingency costs. 

Current First Selectman Bernie Dennler said he was glad the additional funding was allocated, since the building’s construction is underway. 

“The fact is that it was not a referendum where we were deciding whether or not to build a building. The building’s already being built. The foundation is in, the steel has gone up in areas … the project was underway. And the fact is that the town did not have the funding to complete the project that it set out to build,” he said.  

He said he wasn’t surprised the measure passed by such a large margin.

“This project had overwhelming support from the beginning. Look at the referendum results from two years ago. There was broad support for this project, and there was broad support to finish it,” Dennler said. “I think that people were well-educated on this. They understood what the consequences of voting no would be.”

According to Dennler, the referendum’s impact on taxpayers will remain flat, thanks to a $2.5 million state grant and the money from the Bendas estate. Dennler said the town expects to have to bond about $8 million for the project. 

The project, which was slightly delayed this summer by rains and a lack of a drainage system, is scheduled for completion in 2024. 

Building Committee Chair Tony Tarnowski said at a Wednesday meeting that he wanted to organize a workshop run by CSG, the town’s project manager, to create a revised budget for the senior center using the extra $1.5 million. Before the referendum approval, he explained that the committee had been taking funds from different line items to pay for necessary costs. 

Tarnowski said he hopes to present the new budget to the full committee at its December meeting.

New Jersey Company Proposes New Waterford Hotel to Accommodate Growing Temp Workforce

Brendan Crowley

WATERFORD — Looking to capitalize on housing for temporary and traveling workers in southeastern Connecticut, a New Jersey company is proposing to build a 122-room WoodSpring Suites hotel at the border with New London on Boston Post Road, it told the Planning and Zoning Commission on Tuesday.

Bill Sweeney, the attorney representing Princeton-based Seven Hills Hospitality Group, told the commission in an informal pre-application review that the hotel would replace four “blighted” properties at the gateway to Waterford — 16 and 18 Boston Post Road and 295 and 313 Willetts Ave.

“This is the first property driving in from New London into Waterford, and it certainly could be a lot better looking than it is today,” Sweeney said.

Sweeney said the hotel would use the “extended stay” model, with Seven Hills contracting JP Hospitality Management to run the hotel. With simple rooms, Sweeney said the WoodSpring Suites would be geared toward people with longer stays, often several weeks at a time. 

He said the company caters to a “completely different customer base” than budget hotels and instead targets mainly corporate and governmental clients, and “cost-conscious” customers who want value without “unnecessary frills.” 

“In many markets, especially here in Waterford, many of the customers for WoodSprings are business travelers on temporary work assignments,” Sweeney said. “Certainly this area of Connecticut is interesting and provides opportunities for [Seven Hills] because of the growing workforce at Electric Boat, the workforce at Pfizer, L+M, Dominion and all their subcontractors are bringing people into the area for work.”

Sweeney said the customer base includes people who are moving to the area for a temporary period and tend to shop locally. They typically have an occupancy rate over 80 percent, he said.

Commission Chair Gregory Massad, who asked Seven Hills to make the informal presentation so commissioners could note any initial concerns, said his main issue was the potential impact on neighbors in the mixed-use commercial and residential area. 

Massad said he felt more comfortable with the idea after seeing the project’s presentation,  which is currently being reviewed by the Conservation Commission for a wetlands permit.

“I think it’s a good use of this property. I would suggest that whatever you do, you take good care of the neighbors in terms of landscaping,” Massad said. “If we have some opposition to it, I’d like to at least feel comfortable that we’ve taken care of the neighbors in buffering their neighborhood or business from a major commercial operation.”

Commissioner Tim Conderino said they should consider the state traffic review currently underway for a 216-unit condo complex approved at 394 Willetts Ave., next to the 204-unit Waterford Woods complex.

Sweeney said they are required to consider all approved and pending projects in their traffic review, and would make sure the new condos were taken into account.