Cooperative spirit boosts Fort Trumbull progress in New London
New London Mayor Michael Passero’s decision to make use of the city’s development agency is paying dividends. It stands in stark contrast to his predecessor’s approach of forever flaying the agency for its link to the city’s eminent domain past.
After his 2015 election, Passero directed funding to the Renaissance City Development Association so that it could hire a full-time director, Peter Davis, a former Norwich planner with considerable experience. As importantly, it sent the signal this was an administration working in harmony, rather than at odds with itself.
On Thursday, the RCDA heard from Massachusetts-based hotel owner and developer Jay Patel. He expressed his interest in developing a hotel and restaurant, and perhaps future marina, on Fort Trumbull’s Parcel 1, a prime piece of real estate with views up the Thames River and out to Long Island Sound.
This follows earlier news about plans for condominium construction on nearby Howard Street, also on parcels under RCDA’s control. Driving both projects, in significant part, is the influx of employees and associated business activity tied to Electric Boat’s workforce expansion at its New London offices.
Creating jobs and expanding the property tax base was the vision that drove the plans to redevelop Fort Trumbull, going back nearly 20 years. Connecticut invested $90 million in state and federal funds to clean up the peninsula and install the infrastructure to allow development.
Things went very wrong, however, with the heavy-handed approach to moving homeowners from the area, leading to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 landmark and vastly unpopular decision approving the use of eminent domain to seize properties.
Pfizer did construct its two office buildings as planned, selling them off to EB when it abandoned them a decade later, but little else happened at Fort Trumbull. A deep recession and anemic state recovery did not help.
It remains to be seen whether the new projects come to fruition. The RCDA, the Passero administration and City Council should not be so desperate that they approve any plans that are not solid or the best use for the parcels. But there is a sense that New London is turning a corner. Developers are expressing an interest in Fort Trumbull and there is a staff in place to work with them.
Attention may soon move from trying to develop the peninsula to doing it right.
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