The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Auction of former Ansonia Copper and Brass site set
ANSONIA » For decades, Anaconda American Brass was the economic generator for this city and much of the Naugatuck Valley.
Then the costs of foreign steel, copper, iron and brass plummeted, resulting in the company being sold and finally closed.
Now the city believes Anaconda, or its most recent successor, Ansonia Copper and Brass, will once again generate economic growth.
“For a long time, this property was viewed as the city’s biggest obstacle,” Corporation Counsel John P. Marini said recently of the six deteriorating buildings that sit on what is possibly contaminated soil.
“This administration sees it as the biggest opportunity,” Marini said. “This is the biggest potential for our city to grow, economically.”
So at 6 p.m. July 19 in the Tax Collector’s Office at City Hall, state Marshal Arthur Davies will conduct an auction of the property.
“The bottom line is that the taxes need to be paid or the property needs to change hands — the city can no longer wait,” said Mayor David Cassetti, who is wrestling with a budget that could be affected by state funding.
“We need action,” he said. “The auction is a great first step.”
The city maintains that Ray McGee, owner of Ansonia Copper and Brass, owes more than $1.3 million in property taxes and Water Pollution Control Authority fees.
“That’s not uncommon for these sprawling industrial structures in the Valley to fall into tax delinquency,” said Sheila O’Malley, Ansonia’s economic development director.
Reviving properties
Another property, SHW Casting Co. — which sits on 3.5 acres of North Main Street just across from Eagle Hose and within the vacant Farrel complex — also falls into that category. A portion of the roof collapsed in February and the building has been ruled unsafe. Pandel Properties of Woodbridge, its owner, owes the city of Ansonia about $80,000 in taxes.
“These vacant, rotting structures have become a cancer that the mayor wants cut out,” Marini said. “Once that happens, there is available land . ... The possibilities for development are endless.”
If you combine the adjacent SHW, Anaconda and Farrel sites, they comprise at least 60 acres of contiguous land stretching from the downtown up to the Route 8 entrance ramp on Wakelee Avenue, near the closed Molto Bene restaurant.
“That’s unusual to have so much developable land so close to a downtown,” O’Malley said.
“It does set the stage for future expansion, possibly doubling the size of our downtown,” added Marini.
The bidder for the Copper and Brass site must have a check payable to Davies or cash totaling $100,000, with the balance to be paid in 10 days. If there is a winning bid, McGee has six months to regain the property by paying the owed taxes and WPCA fees as well as interest on the winning bidder’s payment.
But when contacted, McGee said if he were going to do that, he would already have paid the amount owed.
“I’m not going to obstruct the city’s efforts,” he said.
McGee agreed the lower costs of foreign products combined with high taxes, labor and health care costs doomed Ansonia Copper and Brass.
“We couldn’t compete,” he said.
Access to rail
In 2014, the city cut a deal with McGee to forgive as much as $400,000 in owed taxes in return for demolition and remediation. Demolition began on Dec. 16, 2014, on two storage buildings. It continued on Oct. 27, 2015, with the removal of three smokestacks, but has since halted. The agreement between the city and McGee expired last fall.
“There are some interested parties,” said Davies, who estimated he has conducted about 150 tax actions in the Valley. He said the auction includes the former administration building at 75 Liberty St. as well as the five standing industrial buildings.
“With the rail line, this would be a good site for a distribution center — something like Amazon,” Davies said.
Marini and O’Malley said other possibilities for the property include industrial, manufacturing or recreational use.
“Residential would probably be the least likely,” Marini said. “But it’s up to the developer, who will determine the highest and best use. The city will work with whoever buys it. The key is for us to help them overcome any obstacles and remove them.”
O’Malley has determined it will cost about $3 million to $4 million to demolish and remove the remaining structures.
She said the city, with a grant from the state Department of Economic and Community Development, is doing an assessment of the remaining buildings on site.
“We have to determine what the extent of the contamination is, and what the liability will be going forward,” O’Malley said. “The city has to be a facilitator between the developer, the state and federal government and the Land Bank.”
The goal of the Connecticut Land Bank is to gather funding from a variety of sources, including philanthropic groups, to remediate brownfields and turn them back to the city for development free of liability.
Once the six-month limit for McGee’s redemption passes, Marini said, the city could begin working with the developer to secure funding to demolish and remediate the properties. There is belief that the Atlantic Richfield Co., which purchased the property in 1977 before later selling it, may have some liability.
“We know we will need to secure additional federal and state dollars as we move through the process.” O’Malley said. “We want to help gather information so that developers can make a more informed decision, and we most definitely want to be a part of the solution.