Southington unable to pull off land swap for reconfigured West Street intersection 

 Jesse Buchanan

SOUTHINGTON — Town leaders weren’t able to pull off a complex land swap deal to reconfigure the Spring Street and West Street intersection in time to receive state money but still hope to make the roadway improvement in the future.

Moving Spring Street required the cooperation of Central Baptist Church, Western Little League and the Parks and Recreation board. All those interests couldn’t be aligned in time for the state’s grant deadline of Friday.

“There wasn’t enough time to broker a deal that would satisfy all parties,” said Michael DelSanto, a Republican Town Councilor and chairman of the Economic Development Strike committee. “We needed a month.”

Since the road project wasn’t ready, the town instead applied to use the state’s grant to resurface the Southington High School track.

The road problem

Spring Street ends at West Street but doesn’t quite line up with West Pines Drive, which intersects with West Street just a bit to the north. That unusual geometry has resulted in accidents and traffic delays, according to town officials.

DelSanto said there have been more than 40 accidents in that area over the past three years.

Town officials have also been concerned about traffic flow on West Street. Queen Street has numerous lights and driveways which were designed in previous decades and that slow down traffic. DelSanto and other town leaders want to avoid that on West Street, focusing on internal access between businesses and limiting the number of lights and curb cuts along the road.

“The chief complaint from residents is that West Street is getting really busy,” DelSanto said.

A state study identified the West Pines Drive and West Street and Spring Street area as a pinch point due to its unusual configuration.

A chance at state money

In July, town leaders were notified about the state’s Small Town Economic Assistance Program grants. That gave Southington five weeks to submit an application on how it would use $500,000.

DelSanto and the town’s economic development coordinator Lou Perillo tried to get the deal together but weren’t hopeful on Thursday with one day to go before the deadline.

“When they come out with (these grants) you need to have a shovel ready, project ready to rock,” DelSanto said Thursday.

The plan

The area around West Pines Drive is developed with houses, so moving that street would be expensive and dependent on buying properties. The area north of Spring Street is owned by Central Baptist Church but only has a soccer field and a playground.

That makes moving Spring Street north to align with West Pines Drive the more attractive option to town leaders.

Perillo and DelSanto’s proposal was for the church and the town to swap land. In exchange for the corner of West Street and Spring Street, the town would give land for the church’s soccer field and playground at 665 Spring St., the Southington West Little League park just to the east of the church’s property.

Central Baptist has an associated college, New England Baptist College, which uses the soccer field. It also has a K-12 school, Central Baptist Academy. Perillo said the town is fortunate that the church is willing to work with the town on a land swap and wanted to make sure that any deal didn’t leave the church worse off in any way.

The state grant, Perillo said, would have helped fund the land swap and accompanying work. It would have taken more money to actually reconfigure the roads. He’s also anticipating another state grant for West Street road improvements such as sidewalks and wants the land question settled in time for those improvements in two years or so.

While the church, headed by Pastor Jim Townsley, was amenable to the deal, DelSanto said there was concern from little league and parks officials about the swap.

Parks, Little League oppose the swap

Due to wetlands between the town-owned property and the church land, the swap would have entailed giving the church 3 acres for an acre of land on the corner of West and Spring streets. The town, with the help of state grant money, would also take on the expense of moving the church’s playground and soccer field.

Joseph Miceli, parks board chairman, said the swap held no benefit for the parks. When he visited the land that was proposed for the swap, he saw children playing on it and said it’s clearly being used even though it’s not an official ball field.

Giving up the 3 acres also limited future expansion if there was a need for more fields.

“Once you give it up, it’s gone,” Miceli said. “As a board, no one was in favor of it.”

“If our mission as the parks board is to ensure our parks are as good as they can be, giving up the land didn’t seem like a good fit or in line with what we’re trying to do with the parks in town,” Miceli said.

Trying another way

DelSanto said there may be a way to get land north of the church property, either through purchases or donations, that would allow the playground and soccer field to move there rather than east.

He’s hoping the town can set up a deal amenable to everyone so that when there’s state money available next time, Southington is ready.

“We’re not going to give up on it. We feel safety is of the utmost importance,” DelSanto said.

Perillo said he’ll continue to try to get the land needed for the road reconfiguration.

“We’ve got to figure out, get a better handle on costs and a way of doing it,” Perillo said. “We definitely would still like to see it happen while the parties are all willing to work together to make it safer.”

Killingly gets funds for brownfield remediation, seeks to build apartments.

Matt Grahn

Killingly has received $800,000 for a brownfield multipurpose grant from the EPA to help remediate the 17-acre Ballouville Mill site, the 12-acre Danielson-Putnam Twin Drive-in site, and the one-acre Old Borough Wastewater Treatment Plant.

This is part of a large increase in brownfield remediation funding nationwide, from around $100 million to $1.5 billion divided over a five-year period due to the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. This means that many brownfields that have been backlogged can now start the remediation process, said U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, who visited Killingly on Tuesday.

Sites that are abandoned and in disrepair like this represent less tax revenue for the town, but are also prone to fires and vandalism, Courtney said.

The town is planning on applying for more money for this remediation, Courtney said.

Ballouville Mill

The plan for the Ballouville Mill is to turn it into apartments or condominiums. There’s a shortage of entry-level housing in Killingly and across the region, Town Manager Mary Calorio said

“(The mill) is located in a neighborhood already, so having housing, whether it's apartments or condos, makes a lot of sense in that area,” she said.  

As the mill’s internal structure is currently in good shape, keeping the mill look might be an asset for a developer, Calorio said.

The Ballouville Mill was built in the 1860s, replacing another mill built on the other side of the street 40 years prior. The mill was operated by the Attawaugan Manufacturing Co, and was sold in 1927 to Powdrell & Alexander Co., a cloth-curtain manufacturer, and the company operated mills in Ballouville and Attawaugan for many years. It was later acquired by the Hale Manufacturing/Monsanto Corp., which used the mill for production for several years and later for storage before shutting it down. Polymer Corp. then used the facility for storage before selling to the Braemore Corp in the 1990s, according to an April 2004 Bulletin article.

Ballouville Mills LLC acquired the mill in April 2004, and it was sold to Marjem in 2009, now listed as Marjem Recovery LLC, according to sales records form the Killingly Assessor’s office.

At that point, Ballouville Mill became “essentially vacant,” Calorio said.

“The town clearly has wanted that property move forward in redevelopment,” she said.

So far, Killingly has completed Phase I and started Phase II site assessment. The town hopes to finish remediation over the next year, and then begin directly marketing the property, Calorio said.

Even with brownfield cleanup on track, redeveloping a mill is still a lot of work for developers. Having information on where contaminants are and a plan to manage or clean it up is needed to answer developer questions, Calorio said.

However, the Ballouville Mill has some water infiltration and a roof failure. Attracting developers to the site before internal structure deterioration happens is critical, Calorio said.

Danielson-Putnam Twin Drive-in

No environmental reviews of property have taken place, so there will be a Phase I assessment on that property. No plans for the property are in place yet, Calorio said

Old Borough Wastewater Treatment Plant

Funds will go toward assessments and cleanup of this property. The town wants to demolish the site, and turn it into open space, or parking space, Calorio said.

The old settlement tanks on site pose a safety risk. The tops of the tanks float up and down based on volume in the tank. People have been known to climb on top of the tanks to retrieve lost balls. Since the tops can move, they have been known to drop unexpectedly when empty, Calorio said.