State gives $11 million for Bristol Route 72 streetscape, New Britain factory conversion

A gateway renewal project along Bristol’s Route 72 and the Ellis Commons mixed-income housing project in New Britain will share $11 million in state aid, part of a $170 million statewide effort by Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration to spur economic development and housing.

The state Bond Commission on Thursday approved funding for dozens of initiatives ranging from affordable housing initiatives in Stamford and Norwalk to revitalization of New Haven’s Long Wharf Park and construction of a New London community center.

One of the chief targets in central Connecticut is aid to the long-awaited streetscape overhaul for the primary east and west gateways to Bristol’s downtown. Long stretches of Route 72 have been notoriously unsightly, and the state is kicking in $6.8 million to refurbish them. Pedestrian safety improvements also are planned for the work, which is expected to begin later this year and run through 2024.

Mayor Jeff Caggiano said Thursday that the work will go a long way to hastening the redevelopment of downtown, where several major construction projects are already under way.

“The real key is that people who are coming to see downtown still have to drive here. When developers see the conditions on Riverside Avenue or Park Street, they say ‘maybe later, I’m not sure about now.’ So this is definitely going to help accelerate what we’re doing downtown,” he said.

City leaders decades ago said that haphazard development along Riverside Avenue — the stretch of Route 72 just east of downtown — was problematic. Soon after Bristol began talking of a major downtown revitalization in the very early 2000s, attention focused on how to make Riverside less unsightly.

“Riverside Avenue is a veritable hodgepodge of automotive, manufacturing, retail, office and even residential uses of varying scale, condition, quality, and appearance,” reads a 2005 city report on the Route 72 corridor.

More recently, the city put more than $230,000 into a study and preliminary engineering for an entirely new Riverside Avenue streetscape to run nearly a mile between Main Street and Blakeslee Street. Tentative designs suggest sidewalks with brick buffers from the street, new landscaping and trees, and decorative lighting and signage.

There would be a similar treatment for Park Street between Divinity Street and the Rockwell Park area, a stretch of more than a half mile.

The city’s 2021 study concluded that “nearly all sections of Riverside Avenue have a low-level aesthetic quality and streetscape environment, a stark contrast to nearby Memorial Boulevard and downtown areas.”

There is little or no landscaping along the road, but there are so many driveways and curb cuts that it can be hard to distinguish where the roadway ends.

“The lack of sidewalks in many areas and nonexistent pedestrian lighting further contribute to an uninviting, unaccommodating and unattractive street environment,” according to the report.

The state aid will pay for crosswalks and other pedestrian safety improvements as well as aesthetic work.

“Park Street has a relatively low-quality streetscape, some areas more so than others,”  according to the report.

Because Park runs past Muzzy Field and Rockwell Park, the existing sidewalk system needs to be maintained or improved for safety, according to the report.

The state is also putting up $4 million as a long-term, no-interest loan for Ellis Commons in New Britain, where WinnDevelopment is converting a five-story, 200,000-square-foot former factory into 154 apartments.

The project previously landed a $995,000 state loan for brownfields cleanup on the property, which once was home to Landers, Frary and Clark, one of New Britain’s major employers during the city’s industrial heyday. The company manufactured electric appliances for decades, and in the late 1930s employed as many as 1,000 workers.

The city has agreed to a 20-year phase-in of taxes on Ellis Commons. Mayor Erin Stewart has said she’s especially interested in seeing local senior citizens find retirement housing there. WinnDevelopment has said units will be priced for tenants making between 30 percent and 80 percent of the area median income.

Overall, WinnDevelopment has estimated the project will cost $80 million or more.

The city’s legislative delegation also noted Thursday that Lamont’s new bond allocation is providing $1.7 million for the Meriden New Britain Berlin Young Men’s Christian Association to rebuild on the site of unused racquetball courts at its New Britain facility. The space will be used for six additional child care classrooms, allowing the center to expand capacity.

“The New Britain community is in need of pre-k childcare and this funding will allow expansion in downtown New Britain,” Sen. Rick Lopes, D-New Britain, said in a statement.