South Windsor Town Council Discusses Economic Development

Spurred by a desire to shape the short- and long-term future of the town, the South Windsor Town Council on Monday discussed economic development strategy.

“Going forward, there are a lot of good things happening in the state of Connecticut,” Mayor Dr. Saud Anwar said in a telephone interviewTuesday. “We are between two important states in Massachusetts and New York and two important cities in New York City and Boston. There is a huge potential of growth. As [New York and Boston] get connected with mass transit, economic opportunities arise. South Windsor’s location is excellent to get some of that growth.

“To achieve its maximum potential, South Windsor has to make some strategic policy decisions that allow us to be a good, solid town to invest in.

Toward that end, Peter Demallie, president and principal of Design Professionals in South Windsor, gave a presentation on the re-branded Springfield/Hartford/New Haven Knowledge Corridor.

The corridor, Demallie said, is a way to capture the attention of national and international businesses that might otherwise overlook the benefits the town has to offer.

Demallie, who sits on a number of regional economic development boards, said that the Hartford/New Haven/Springfield Knowledge Corridor comprises 2.7 million people, making it the 20th-largest market in the United States, larger than Baltimore, Denver, Pittsburgh and Charlotte, among other places.

That market is fairly urban, with 700 people per square mile, compared to about half that per square mile in Denver and St. Louis, Demallie said.

There are also 1.2 million employees, 41 colleges and universities with 215,000 students and major employers such as Cigna, Aetna and ESPN located within the corridor, according to Demallie.

What’s more, the Knowledge Corridor is expanding its commuter rail system to connect Hartford and Springfield and New Haven, which should be completed in late 2016.

There is also the CTfastrak - the busline from New Britain to Hartford - which is currently being constructed.

While all of this is good news, Demallie said, there are also some drawbacks to the region, not least of which is the lack of a major league professional sports team. While that may seem like a minor point, it is more difficult to attract young professionals to the area without a major league presence.

Demallie’s talk then turned to South Windsor, which, he said, needs to address its lack of mobility for its residents, employees and employers. The region may be improving in that regard, but South Windsor lags behind, Demallie said.

“South Windsor has the lousiest mass transit imaginable in this town,” Demallie said. “It is served by slow and infrequent reverse commutation buses. Their routes do not serve employers, employees or residents. There is no intra-town bus system as I had when I was growing up in another Connecticut community. We do not have any real connection to the region’s transit system. Federal Express and other [employers] along Sullivan Avenue have no way to get workers to their facilities other than by car.”

Demallie said that his office is on Sullivan Avenue and he frequently sees employees at other businesses being dropped off by cab and car.

In addition, Demallie said that the younger members of the workforce also have housing demands - namely affordable apartments - that South Windsor currently doesn’t offer.

“It’s been decades since an apartment complex has been built in South Windsor,” said Demallie, noting that most, if not all of those apartments were converted into condominiums in the 1980s.

The apartment complex at Evergreen Walk has been sidetracked, meaning that the only apartments being built are the 155-unit Nutmeg Village Apartments, which will be constructed some time next year.

“How are we going to retain our youth and the workforce of the future?” Demallie asked rhetorically. “Zoning is a huge impediment."

Indeed, South Windsor has a 15-acre minimum parcel size in order for apartments to be built.

“The parcel sizes for apartments and condominiums are far too large,” Demallie said. “It’s hard to find one that is zoned residential. There are only a handful of them.”

South Windsor also must focus on redeveloping its aging industrial areas, Demallie said.

The Geissler’s complex, for example, is “a vacant dinosaur” that could be redeveloped into a mixed-use space

“We can rebuild elementary schools so employers and employees want to be here,” Demallie said. “We need to work to build a workforce that has the skill sets for the jobs of the future. It’s amazing that many of our employers say that they are unable to fill their vacant positions with qualified candidates. There are thousands of jobs at this moment identified by employers [here in the area] and they cannot be filled with qualified candidates.”

Demallie wrapped up by saying that the town and the region needed to get to work right away on capturing the economic development opportunities.

“Other regions are way ahead of us,” Demallie said. “You snooze, you lose. We need to get to work.”Town councilors said that they shared in Demallie’s concerns.

Deputy Mayor Ed Havens said that “the first thing we need to do to liven this town is apartments for the young. Is it ever going to happen? I don’t know.”

Town Councilor Keith Yagaloff agreed with Demallie that more work needed to be done to improve the town’s transit system, stating that people who walk to work on Sullivan Avenue are treated like “second-class citizens.”

Yagaloff said that the Evergreen Walk apartment complex fell through, but those apartments were going to be rented out at $1,700 to $2,400 a month, well beyond the affordability for a young professional making $40,000 per year.

“As attractive as Evergreen Walk is, someone graduating from college does not have the resources to have meals every night at Evergreen Walk,” Yagaloff said.

Regardless, Demallie said that South Windsor has a “phobia” of apartments.

“I don’t know what that is,” he said. “Do we need apartments and why do we need them? Do we want them and why do we want them?”

Much of the concern seemed to center on the number of children that could move into town as a result of lower-cost apartments, Demallie said. But a study showed that there was one child for every five units, which is extremely low and, therefore, would not result in any discernable tax burden in the form of increased enrollment in schools, Demallie said.

The Town Council ended its evening with a discussion on the creation of a temporary economic development advisory council that would include members of the council, the planning and zoning commission, the economic development coordinator, the town manager and members of the community that could assist in the policy-shaping and, perhaps, recruitment process.

Anwar said that the advisory council would not overlap the Economic Development Commission, but rather would serve to augment it.

“We are way behind in terms of economic development,” Anwar said. “We cannot lose focus. We need fields … where is this money going to come from? … Increase taxes? If that’s a strategy, then that’s not a strategy. … It’s going to require a lot of hard work and coordination.”

The meeting ended before a vote could be taken on the matter, however.