Brown to Green

Mixed-Use Project to Transform Old Wire Cloth Factory in Fairfield County

A $400 million project to create a transit-oriented development with residential, office, and retail uses is already under way near Danbury.

by Leonard Felson

A Greenwich, Conn., developer that has specialized in reclaiming brownfield sites from Boston to Miami is back home, transforming a 55-acre mill site between Danbury and Norwalk, Conn., into a $400 million mixed-use, transit-oriented development.

When completed three years from now, the development in the Georgetown section of Redding, Conn., is expected to increase the population of the largely rural town by 10%, or 1,200 residents, adding 416 housing units. Small portions of the property are within the neighboring towns of Wilton and Weston.

The project, dubbed simply Georgetown, will have 300,000 sq ft of commercial space in 20 to 25 buildings of up to four stories, with many having restaurants and retail on ground floors topped by offices and condominiums on upper floors. It will also have a performing arts center, a police station, a 40,000-sq-ft satellite facility for the Wilton YMCA, a 600-space parking garage, and a new Metro-North Railroad station that will connect the new pedestrian-friendly community to New York and the rest of Fairfield County.

The project won unanimous approval from both the town’s zoning and planning commissions, thanks in part to the developer’s commitment to features such as green and energy-efficient design and to so-called “smart-growth” planning spurred by the antisprawl New Urbanism movement. The project is seeking Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold-level certification, and is applying to become one of the first projects in the country to be certified as an overall LEED neighborhood development.

“This is a combination of lessons learned,” says Stephen Soler, president of Georgetown Land Development, the developer. “What we’re attempting to do is apply the best practices from a multitude of disciplines on a complex brownfield development.”

Soler says he also made a strategic decision to use a variety of different architects, designers, and engineers, partly because the project is so complex but also to foster a more organic feel.

“We didn’t want it to be Disneyesque,” he adds. “This is a village where people live and work, and it’s been my experience that any successful village has different architects. You get the best results that way.”

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Careful Land Planning Reaps Reward      

For 150 years, the Georgetown site was home to Gilbert & Bennett Manufacturing, which made wire cloth, netting, fencing, and other products until it closed its mill in 1989 and declared bankruptcy less than 10 years later.

Abandoned and susceptible to fire and vandalism, the site became a concern for Redding officials, who in 2000 actively began seeking a partner to purchase the tax liens and revitalize the site. Three years later, Soler acquired the property.

Instead of coming before zoning and planning officials with set plans, Soler’s team reached out to the community and held a week-long public charrette that involved more than 1,000 people, including industry professionals, government officials, and residents who shared ideas and concerns.

Led by Andreas Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk of Miami-based Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., both nationally known urban planners, the process touched on all the hot-button issues, from the number of children the development would add to the local school system – which was estimated to be 60 – to the inclusion of affordable housing for seniors and moderate-wage workers.

An onsite team of architects and designers worked 12- to 18-hour days analyzing and fleshing out suggestions. The result was a master plan for the mixed-use village center.

 “The typical pattern of developer on one side and the public on the other, butting heads, had been eliminated,” says Natalie Ketcham, the first selectman in Redding, where she heads the town’s Board of Selectmen. “So while the application received very thorough review from our commissions, it also received unanimous approval.”

Key to the master plan, which the town required, was creating a transit-oriented focus. The transit theme evolved in part because residents had pushed for preserving the rural character and open space of an area where many homes are on four-acre lots. Many of the residents also commute into New York or to jobs in other Fairfield County cities.

With the transit focus, the designers needed to establish a high-density, mixed-use development that would not require residents to have cars to get to work, shop, or even travel around the community, says Susan VanBenschoten, an engineer and director of projects and client services with Hartford-based Fitzgerald & Halliday. She also served as transportation engineer on the project.

Part of that planning led to Soler’s successful request to the Connecticut Department of Transportation to re-open the long-closed Georgetown stop on Metro-North’s New Haven line. The new station being developed will be no more than a 10-minute walk from anywhere in the new community.

Planners also wanted to integrate the project into the fabric of the area. Locally prominent materials such as brick will be used in pedestrian walkways that will connect the site to the established part of Georgetown on the other side of Route 107 and to Wilton nearby.

Within the residential piece of the project, single-family detached houses are projected to sell for $1.6 million; townhouses for $1 million, and lofts for $600,000.

Construction Already Under Way  

 Construction started last year with the rebuilding and upgrade of a small wastewater treatment plant into a state-of-the-art facility that will handle up to 245,000 gallons per day, financed by a $5 million low-cost federal loan. Those funds became available after the project established its own taxing district, created by the Connecticut Legislature, allowing the developer to sell $14.5 million in general obligation bonds last fall to pay for infrastructure onsite and up to $72 million in tax-exempt mortgage bonds for commercial construction.

Demolition is also proceeding on about two-thirds of the 36 late-19th Century brick mill buildings on the site, with the takedowns focused on the most deteriorated structures. The project team is also removing several buildings that have stood over part of the Norwalk River, exposing it to the new development.

Under the project’s green standards, the building team has to decontaminate and abate asbestos in the structures, using strict methods to capture pollutants and avoid seepage into the groundwater or the Norwalk River. About 90% of the wood, steel, and masonry from the demolition is slated for recycling.

Other infrastructure work will begin this summer, including installation of underground utilities and water and storm drainage lines.

The project team will also remove fabricated metal structures erected in front of many of the brick structures in the 1950s, which at the time expanded the mill complex. After removal of those structures, known as “Butler buildings,” the project team will preserve and transform about a dozen mill buildings that are on the National Register of Historic Places into lofts, condominiums, offices, restaurants, and other commercial space.

More building construction tasks will start this summer. The developer tapped Stamford-based A.P. Construction to renovate a 31,000-sq-ft mill building being used by the National Park Service as a maintenance facility for Weir Farm, the only national park in Connecticut. The park service will still use the mill building to maintain the farm, which is in neighboring Wilton.

Meanwhile, Konover Construction of Farmington, Conn., will build up to 50,000 sq ft of medical office space on the complex for Norwalk Hospital in a structure that will be directly across from the Weaving Building, one of the historic mill structures.

Both the park service and hospital buildings are going to use green designs, a goal for all of the commercial buildings planned for the development.

To accent the history of the site and to support the green development philosophy, the team will be reusing the masonry and steel from demolished buildings as design elements throughout the property, says Robert Gilchrest, a landscape architect with Solaris Landscape Architecture of Southbury, Conn. He worked with Jack Curtis & Associates of Monroe, Conn., during the master plan and site plan development.

The project has already won positive feedback beyond its backyard. In November 2005, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recognized Redding with a National Award for Smart Growth Achievement in the Small Communities category.

Key Players

Owner: Georgetown Land Development, Georgetown, Conn.

Lead Project Architect: Roger Ferris + Partners, Westport, Conn.

Transportation Planner: Fitzgerald & Halliday, Hartford

Civil Engineer: Tighe & Bond, Shelton, Conn.

Traffic Engineer: Earthtech, Glastonbury, Conn.

Train Station/YMCA Engineer-Design: LiRo Engineering, Syosset, N.Y.

Environmental Engineer: Fuss & O’Neill, Manchester, Conn.

Contractor: Konover Construction, Farmington, Conn.; A.P. Construction, Stamford

Master Plan Design Team: Solaris Landscape Architecture, Southbury, Conn.; Jack Curtis & Associates, Monroe, Conn.; Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., Miami