Grant backs new vision for Rocky Hill ‘eyesore’
With old Ames HQ demolished, state kicks in $990K for multiuse development
“This is a really big project for Rocky Hill. This site is going to be the very beginning of the creation of a downtown that does not exist in Rocky Hill right now.”
Now that the former Ames headquarters in Rocky Hill has been demolished, the state has awarded a nearly $1 million grant for Belfonti Companies to clean up hazardous debris and build a 213-unit apartment building there.
Along with a previous grant, the new funding means Connecticut will have put approximately $1.5 million toward the estimated $60 million or more redevelopment.
For the town and its legislative delegation, getting rid of the long-vacant Ames building has been a priority for years. Most recently though Rocky Hill has developed a long-range plan to create a walkable town center directly around the 12-acre parcel on Main Street.
“This was an eyesore, a contaminated piece of land that we couldn’t do anything about,” state Sen. Matt Lesser said Friday morning at a news conference to announce the funding. “I can’t think of a higher priority than an eyesore right on Main Street that was really a blight on this community.”
On Friday, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz announced the $990,000 brownfields remediation grant, which will help cover Belfonti’s costs for removing asbestos from the old building and for any pollution cleanup required for the land under the parking lot. Bysiewicz credited Rep. Kerry Wood with working with Belfonti to keep the project on schedule.
“It took us this long because it
— Lisa Marotta, Rocky Hill mayor
required a public-private partnership,” Rep. Kerry Wood told reporters at the site Friday. “This is a very expensive project to get going. We needed every dollar we could get from the state of Connecticut and they were there with us this whole time to help the town of Rocky Hill attract one of the best developers there is in the area of residential development.”
Belfonti last year estimated it would spend $50 million to $60 million to demolish the hulking, vacant office building, clean up contaminants from the debris and the surrounding 12 acres, and build an apartment complex with 21,000 square feet of new retail and office space. The company hasn’t publicly updated the estimates since then, but construction expenses have gone up across the country in the past year.
Mayor Lisa Marotta, whose administration was the first to qualify the Ames site for a state brownfields grant, projected that structural steel for the new building should be up this year and construction should be complete by mid-2025.
Marotta, a Republican, thanked the Democratic administration of Bysiewicz and Gov. Ned Lamont for helping her town.
“As the lieutenant governor mentioned, this is a really big project for Rocky Hill,” Marotta said. “This site is going to be the very beginning of the creation of a downtown that does not exist in Rocky Hill right now.
“We are split right down the middle by I-91 and we have two very separate, distinct commercial corridors. One is this Route 99/Silas Deane Highway, and the other is Route 3/Cromwell Avenue. This side doesn’t necessarily get the attention it deserves,” Marotta said. “Now that is finally happening thanks to the lieutenant governor’s and the governor’s commitment to brownfield remediation. The neighbors have been looking at this blighted property for far too long.”
The building that used to house the administrative and merchandising operations for the Ames discount stores was once a thriving employer with more than 1,000 workers. The payroll shrank as the Ames chain closed stores and retrenched. The company ended all operations about two decades ago.
The property is directly across the street from the town green, and town leaders were frustrated for years as no redevelopment plan emerged.
Bysiewicz said supporting this kind of project is important for the state for several reasons. About 10 percent of the new apartments are being set aside for so-called workforce housing, with rents affordable to people in low- to lower-medium-wage jobs. It will also foster a stronger, more walkable town center in the future, she said.
“It’s not a partisan issue to get underutilized, dirty properties cleaned up and put back on the tax rolls,” Bysiewicz said “Everybody wins. You get a cleaned up property, you get economic development, you get more housing.”