New London ― The owner of a dilapidated, long-vacant former mill property said he expects to begin turning the sprawling structure into apartment units before Thanksgiving.

Ted Lazarus, a principal of the Litchfield-based Park Lane Group, said Friday remediation at 90 Garfield Ave., former home to the Edward Bloom Silk Co business, is about 90% complete and he expects construction of 87 apartments ― 20% of which will be set aside as affordable housing ― to be finished by the first quarter of 2026.

The Park Lane Group, operating as Garfield Mills LLC, bought the 97,000-square-foot mill building, which has sat unused for decades, for $239,000 in 2019.

The company, with the aid of a $1 million state brownfield remediation grant, began cleaning the property about eight months ago. Lazarus said the former factory was rife with contaminants, including lead-painted walls and chemical-laden caulk in window sealants.

“But we’re in good shape and are enormously excited for the next steps,” Lazarus said.

In addition to the state’s contribution, the city has also extended its support in the form of a $2.16 million tax break agreement approved by the City Council in October 2023.

Garfield Mills will pay an annual tax bill of $20,000 for the first four years of the 20-year agreement during the construction phase, with those amounts increasing by 2.5% annually in most subsequent years.

The city currently collects about $20,000 in annual taxes from the building and 3.5-acre site but officials anticipate that figure will jump significantly after its redevelopment.

If the mill site remained unused, the city could expect to take in $510,893 in taxes from the property over a two-decade period. But that figure leaps to $1.3 million when the project, with its anticipated $4.8 million assessment, is completed, Finance Director David McBride previously said.

The city, in exchange for signing the agreement, will get a new housing complex expected to spur economic improvements in the surrounding area.

The mill, also known locally as the Faria Mill, is located in the city’s Tax Increment Financing Garfield Mills District, an incentive zone created by the council in 2022 that allows a portion of any increase in tax revenues from rising property values to be set aside for infrastructure improvements in that area.

Under that plan, 50% of tax revenue realized by increases in assessed value in the district will be “recycled” back into the neighborhood for various improvement projects, including new sidewalks, parks and lighting, with the remainder funneled into the city’s general fund.

Felix Reyes, the city’s director of planning and economic development, described the former mill – and the surrounding block – as an almost textbook case of blight.

“It’s been a long, drawn-out process with the remediation at that brownfield site, which was a factory for a long time,” he said on Friday. “But it’s encouraging to hear they plan to start construction in the near future.”

j.penney@theday.com