The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Officials optimistic about future of Route 34 retail corridor
If the retail health of an area is measured in how many vacant storefronts people drive past, there’s a commercial stretch of Route 34 in Derby that seems to be in a state of transition.
It’s less than a mile along the westbound side of Route 34, but along the stretch from Orangewood Way to Sodom Lane’s westernmost intersection with the state road, there are retail vacancies aplenty.
There’s a faded former Burger King location at 540 New Haven Ave. that closed sometime in 2020 and now is becoming the target of graffiti artists.
There’s the shell of the former Adams grocery
store site up the road, next to a somewhat-new and very busy Big Y supermarket, with more empty spots close by.
The majority of the vacancies are in Hilltop Commons, a strip mall anchored by that Big Y and CVS. Of the 177,207 square foot of retail space in Hilltop Commons, 42 percent is vacant, according to information on the website of the company that operates the shopping center, Elmsford, N.Y.-based DLC Management Corp.
The largest vacancy in Hilltop Commons is the 42,000-square-foot space that used to house Adams, vacant since September 2016.
Derby Chief of Staff Andrew Baklik said he has “no concerns on a longterm basis” about the viability of that part of the Route 34 retail corridor.
“Some of the vacancies we’re seeing are a function of the pandemic and people shopping online and working from home,” Baklik said.
“There’s a lot of traffic that goes by there, bringing eyeballs into the area,” he said. “We have every confidence that DLC will fill the space in due time and we know they’ve been marketing the Adams space pretty aggressively.”
A little more than 37,000 vehicles drive past Hilltop Commons daily, according to DLC’s website. Company officials did not respond to requests for comment on the vacancies at the shopping center and how DLC plans to fill them.
City officials are hoping that a $200,000 upgrade to the CT Transit bus stops along that stretch of Route 34 will spur more retail interest in the area. Baklik said the grant money came from the state’s Community Connectivity program and will be spent improving sidewalks and crosswalks along Route 34.
Baklik said the area around Hilltop Commons draws customers not only from Woodbridge, Derby and Ansonia, but from parts of northern Milford and Orange, as well.
And there are still plenty of businesses there: Behind the empty Burger King are a Lowe’s home improvement store and a Dollar Tree, while across the street from that is a Big Lots, Edge Fitness Center and a Starbucks.
Sprinkled in front of the Hilltop Commons plaza are the Valley Diner, Heavenly Donuts, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Subway and an Edible Arrangements. Next to the former Adam’s site, there’s The Liquor Factory. Tipsy Tomato restaurant is located in Hilltop Commons, as are Derby Cigar Shop and a Supercuts.
Bill Purcell, president of the Greater Valley Chamber of Commerce in Shelton, said he views the situation at Hilltop Commons as “the glass being half full rather than half empty.”
“The shopping center is certainly more full than it was before,” Purcell said. “The plaza is having a renaissance. And having any kind of supermarket there is a regional draw in terms of activity.”
Because of the havoc the pandemic wreaked upon the nation’s retail sector, he said it may take a while longer to fill the vacancies.
“There’s a real dearth of retail tenants out there right now,” Purcell said. “And they may have to rethink their strategy in terms of who they want for tenants.”
Brian Marks, senior lecturer in the economics and business analytics department at the University of New Haven’s Pompea College of Business, said many retail vacancies at malls and shopping centers around Connecticut and the country “are pre-existing conditions that predate the pandemic.”
“The pandemic has brought mall maintenance and facility utilization to the forefront,” Marks said.
“Unless the management wants to be aggressive on pricing, many retail operations will be hesitant to take a risk on sites that were questionable since before the pandemic,” he said. “Retail ownership and management need to figure out how to transform their facilities maybe not just to retail, but to mixed use.”
Hilltop Commons faced vacancies in 2016 when the retail center, then known as Derby Plaza, had Walmart close its store there in July of that year. Two months later, Adams announced it was closing due to sluggish sales and increased competition.
But Big Y announced in summer 2019 it was relocating its Ansonia store to the Derby plaza, and it opened that fall.
Retailers recognize the value of having a presence in the Naugtuck Valley, Purcell said.
Big Y also opened a store on Bridgeport Avenue in Shelton in late 2019 on the former site of the Crabtree car dealership, while farther north in Oxford, Price Chopper’s Market 32 store is the anchor for the Quarry Walk, a mixed-use complex.
Purcell said the arrival of Big Y in that plaza brought new consumers to the retail center that weren’t shopping there before.
“The Big Y in Hilltop is our grocery store of choice,” said Kate Rosen, a Woodbridge resident. “We also get our pizza from Tipsy Tomato most Friday nights. And we aren’t the only Woodbridge residents who shop there.”
Rosen said her family shops at the Big Y in Derby not because of its location, but due to other factors.
“We have another grocery store closer than the Big Y,” she said. “We prefer the Big Y for the prices, selection and the upkeep of the store itself. It is a wellappointed grocery store.”
Rosen said before Big Y relocated from Ansonia to Derby, “we didn’t come here often, very infrequently, maybe once or twice a year.”
Rosen said she’d like to see an electric bicycle shop fill one of the vacant spaces in Hilltop Commons.
“We observed how the pandemic impacted occupancy in the plaza and hope that this provides an opportunity for new entrepreneurs,” she said.