New urbanism at old mill

Redding residents recently got their first glimpse at $100 million plan to turn the former Gilbert & Bennett Wire Mill into a self-contained community within a community complete with various forms of housing, pedestrian-friendly common areas and small businesses.

The Georgetown Land Development

"We are excited about the project and we're certainly hoping it will have a positive impact, but we don't have the details on that yet," Redding First Selectman Natalie Ketcham said.

GLDC has hired economist Fred Carstensen from the University of Connecticut to assess the project, but Ketcham said they have yet to present any preliminary findings to the town.

"This will become a center of attention for this area," said Mark Herman, owner of Mark Herman Housewright, a custom woodworking shop that leases 20,000 square feet in one of the existing buildings. "If you look at the map, Georgetown is right in the middle of Fairfield County This could be a main draw for the towns of Redding and Weston, which current ly don't have town centers."

Herman said GLDC has been "straight forward" with him about including his company in the redevelopment, setting aside 36,000 square feet of manufacturing space to give him room to grow.

Brownfields experts

"Our goal is to foster an open constructive dialogue and that is exactly what has happened,said Gian-Carlo Peressutti, a hired consultant who serves as a spokesman for GLDC.

The company is managed by Stephen M. Soler of Cos Cob, a 15-year veteran of the real estate development business and an adjunct faculty member at Baruch College in New York City where he teaches brownfield redevelopment courses at the Steven Newman Real Estate Institute.

Andres Duany of the Miami-based firm Duany, Plater-Zyberk, led the charrette. His firm was hired by GLDC to compose the master plan for the property Duany is an awardwinning proponent of traditional. town planning who has deployed "new urbanism" concepts in communities in Seaside, Fla., and Kentlands, Md.

The 60-acre site in Georgetown village is one of the last vestiges to Fairfield County's industrial past. Gilbert & Bennett operated a wire mill on the site, between 1830 and the 1980s. The mill was once Redding's biggest employer. Gilbert & Bennett went bankrupt in 1998.

Last year, GLDC bought about $1 million in tax liens from the town of Redding and is working to acquire title through foreclosure.

Contamination question marks

The first hurdle for the developer is to fully evaluate and begin to clean up pollution from 150-plus years of industrial use.

GLDC has also engaged the environmental engineering firm Fuss & O'Neil to complete an evaluation of contamination at the site, in compliance with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection.

Major contaminants found at the site include metals, such as zinc and 64 and petroleum-based substances. However, GLDC clams the sampling completed thus far indicates the contamination is contained within the boundaries of the site.

Peressutti acknowledged that certain portions of the property are worse than others, creating a number of variables when it comes to the question of what remediation techniques and strategies should be implemented. All that, he said, leaves the cost of the cleanup openended at this point.

The length of the cleanup will depend on the options approved by the state and the pace of redevelopment, but is estimated to range from two to three years.

Peressutti said the next step is to use a $100,000 brownfields assessment grant issued by the EPA to test pollution levels in the "lagoon" portion of the property. The EPA put a temporary environmental cap on the lagoon in 2001 after removing about 3,000 cubic yards of contaminated sludge, but a permanent solution must be found for the development to move forward.

Finalizing financing

When the project moves to the development stage, Peressutti said GLDC would bring in different developers to finance and build different aspects of the project.

Because of that, the privately funded portions of project hinge on GLDC's ability to attract other developers willing to work within the confines of its vision for the community, and its ability to convince those developers that they will be able to do so profitably.

The company also plans to take advantage of whatever public funds that might be available to this project. That could include brownfields grants, historic preservation funds, economic development funds or incentives and affordable/subsidized housing funds.