Town Center Economic Development Commission - Special Meeting

Um we midappril meeting on tax day no less. Uh thank you all for being here. Those of you who are online, thank you. Um let the records reflect that this meeting was called to order at exactly 5:00 on April 15, 2025. Uh will you please uh do do the roll call? Commissioner Michelle present. Commissioner Caris Gio absent. Commissioner Goully absent. Commissioner Hudgen present. Commissioner Riley present. Thank you. Uh I just want to confirm we do have a quum for this meeting. Yes, that's correct. Thank you much. Uh, can I get a motion to approve the minutes of March 24th, 2025? It was a special meeting. The minutes are in front of you. Let's get it on the table for discussion. I get a motion. Move. Moved by Hudin. Second. Uh, second. Uh, all those uh any discussion, changes, adjustments to the meetings as presented. All right. Hearing none. All those in favor of the minutes signify by saying I I chairs I. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you much. Lyn, anyone here for public comment? Yes, sir. Ma'am, you have 20 seconds. Okay. Good evening. Kevin G. Your name and address. Yeah, right. Thank you. Kevin G. I'm used to this. Uh Kevin Goff, five Bear Ridge Drive. Um uh I'm here tonight mainly to

hear the discussion with the uh commission. Uh but I have read through the uh material. I'm going to be commenting on this in a week at the T TPC meeting. So I just want to make it clear that my comments here are my own personal comments, not as a uh uh not a plan and zoning commissioner. Um overall, I think there's a lot of good work in this uh in this plan. Um the the the two basic things that I would hone in on. Um one is the comment that was made at the public forum when uh I think it was back in February. uh David Leupa made the comment that one problem with any issue surrounding the town center is the town center is largely you know it's it's a place of commerce right now or we would like it to be anyway um but it's largely it is in that respect it's a public space and I think one of the issues that is going to be raised with all of this is going to be um restoring you know increasing the green. I don't think anyone has a problem with that. In fact, I think people are very uh um hopeful of that. I certainly think restoring commerce, restoring the the type of commercial um businesses um especially smallcale mom and pop businesses in the center of town. Um everyone is in favor of that. I think the hardest part is going to be the comments about apartments. Uh, not that I think everyone agrees with the general idea of to get an active and walkable downtown, you need to have more housing downtown, but we've seen that already happen largely on in residential areas that have been converted to multifamily. So, I think one of the questions is going to be how much

multifamily or how much how much more tra how much more residential will the center hold. Um, and I think that's something that we need to take up in ultimately in the plan of conservation development too. Um, so I think that's going to be an issue. I think too the other thing with density in the town center, this is a higher comment. I think it's good to have density in the town center. I think though we aren't doing the other piece of that which is restoring lack of density to the other outskirts of town. So, if we're going to have a strategy to increase density in the center, I think we also need to combine that with less density outside. Um, that's my main comment. Um, you know, I I mentioned to Mr. Poland um at the public forum, I'm assuming this plan is a plan and we come up with a plan, but then as it's executed over some length of time, I don't think it's going to happen overnight. Clearly there could be some uh some variation. So I would also ask the commission to make sure that um you know we have enough flexibility that at the end of the day we can uh you know we have something in mind but that can change. Thank you uh for your time and I'm interested to hear the discussion. Thank you very much. Uh uh anyone want to comment about what you just heard for the record? No. No. Thank you much, Mr. Chair. I think we have one more public comment. We do. Okay. My apologies. Move. Oh, Joe. Yes. Joe, you have 10 seconds, right? Cutting you in half. I'm going to be sitting up here for another four or five

hours. So, um, thank you, uh, Joe Merritt 31 Woods Road. Um, I, uh, am very happy about what you guys are doing and I think you're doing a wonderful job. I should say that. Um, but I have a couple of questions. One is, uh, I'm getting questions from everybody on this fund that we're set up, and I'm hoping that maybe you can shed some light on that I haven't heard. Now, my understanding is the main reason for that fund is so we can go after more money because the four million we put in there is is not enough to do much. And we don't I don't believe it's intended to be used. I guess I the council has a decision on this, but it's not intended to be used on anything minor like if we not putting lights up or anything during I mean there are things we'd like to do right away, but those come out of the current budget. Not not this this is a war test for financial uh for economic development, I believe. Unless you correct me, I'm not sure you you guys are fully up on that either, but um the I would like to do some things right away like I would like to deadend u I mean block it off if that would solve a lot of the traffic problems that states having. they can't decide what to do with the center of town intersection and I think that should solving that problem should come before uh we we start doing much building. I think it's it so we could initiate that and uh as you've heard from me and several other people have I just like to do that right now and I don't think it affects anything else. So, I I'd love to hear your opinion on that and whether you

support that kind of priority. Um, I'm hoping that the uh state puts in a roundabout, but whatever they do, getting that into a just a two-way intersection instead of the complications they have with Windberry would be a great solution and it would get us well along. Um, the second concern I have, uh, well, I I guess it I guess I expressed it is the $4 million we put in there, I think, is meant to attract, uh, reserves, state grants. I don't know if they're going to give us any, but we're going to apply for grants. And if you put up $4 million yourself, you have a much better chance of getting some. So, I've heard from people, and so that mainly is the reason for doing it. It's it's as you know is not something we intend to spend right away. It's it's put up there in order to get grants and or get more money because 4 million by itself won't do the whole job. We know it's going to be more than probably double that. And u so I I hope I understand what the use of that that fund is for. Uh I I don't know who the mayor whispered some things to me about it, but I mean it's supposed to be a decision by the council, but I um I eventually will be I think u but that's about all I had. I just wondered how you felt about things like doing some of these things right away that should not involve the fund and how it would affect the rest of the action. Thank you. Thank you. Joe, you said you had two things. Yeah, I'm counted three or four things. So, you better get back to school and learn how to count, man. But thank you, Joe, for your comments. Um, anyone want to respond to Joe's um

question? Yeah, I could. Um I think uh based on the phasing the phasing of the project that might come into play you know when they do it that might be a access for when they building the whole project that might be an access point. So too early might not help the situation. You might have to do it in phases. That's what I'm thinking. You know that's down the road. So in the planning stages we can incorporate that in the planning stages of construction if when if it happens. But we'll take that under advisement. That's a good idea. Okay. Any No. Okay. Thank you very much, Joe. Thank you for your comments and uh thank you for your comments as well, sir. Okay. Moving on to next item on the agenda. If there are no no further public comments. Thank you much. Uh we're going to go to uh Gman York uh town draft master plan discussion and commission feedback. Um Don, any any u comments follow up? uh to last month's meeting. I'm sorry. What' you say? My apologies. Any and any comments or followup? Any changes since we last met last month? No, not at all. Uh the plan is as it was delivered to you uh last month. Okay. Thank you much. I'm going to look to my colleagues if anyone had uh has any questions. Did I did have one item um seems like a typo on 12 on page 121 uh on the phase three for the town green expansion. Part of it was talking about relocation of tenants in the west wing of the mall to the east wing to accommodate the demolition. I think that word is supposed to be west wing. The last thing you said that was supposed to be west wing. Yeah, it was

relocating tenants in the west wing to the east wing to accommodate the demolition and it says right now the east wing. H I think that word should be west wing. Okay, we will check that and I will just uh just want to state that my head was spinning as I was talking about those phases and kind of this wing to that wing and that wing to that wing. the uh the phasing plan is a bit complex in uh being able to maintain some degree of tenency while moving forward with the project. So yes, I I figured that I had to read it several times myself to make sure I wasn't crossing things. Right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah. Lenny, no comment. No comment. You have no questions? Yeah. You good? So I I guess Don my only um concern and this matches up with Joe's concern funding financing of this massive change for the town center. Um I think that um before we comment as a commission we want to hear from from the public and we have public hearings coming up um later this month and uh at those meeting we're going to get the input then and then we we'll get an opportunity to make final comments. I think we've commented over the last 10 months or so and that's how we got to where we are now. But but let's hear from the public. So we are looking forward to the public coming out. Uh Lyn, can you repeat? Can you um remind us all when the public hearing is? Sure. The public hearing is scheduled for 4:29 at 6:00 pm and it's um hybrid. So here in council chamber chambers and on zoom. Thank you

much. So um again 4:29 6 o'clock 6 pm in this very in this very room. So we look forward public to come out. Please if you have any thoughts and ideas we encourage you to come out and uh and make sure you let us know for the town center as many of you know and everyone has an opinion about it but it's it's pretty much um uh universal that we need to fix it. We need to we need to do something in town because what's there now is not working. So if you have any ideas and thoughts on what we need to do, we encourage everyone to come out and make it known to us on what you're thinking and we will take into consideration everything is on the table. So having said that D my only thoughts Don have you given thought about how this is going to be financed? I know. I know. I know it's not your role, but historically, you know, other experiences you've had um how have um how has other towns how have other towns fund these these types of massive large projects? This for us, it's a large project. Yeah, at the end of the day, funding is always, you know, the most challenging item. Uh let me say a couple words. I'll let Mike jump in cuz he deals on the finance side of things a bit more so than I do. Uh, essentially three sets of kind of budgets were laid out in the draft plan and I just want to kind of point to them uh, generically, but one is kind of the public infrastructure improvements within the greater town center overall. And that's where we made recommendations for things like uh new bus stops and bus shelters, improved sidewalks, so forth and so on that budget. And then if I recall uh we estimated I think around $4 or5

million. Uh the recommendation in the plan is that that become a kind of work program for the capital improvements budget that the town it goes to its capital improvements on a yearly basis doing infrastructure upgrades across the community that some degree of priority be given to the town center and that while I think I said five years uh it could be any years that is palatable to the community. Uh but over a number of years that the town kind of worked through those physical improvements. So I think that source of funding is coming from uh is coming from ultimately the CIP as a yearly budget discussion. The second budget that was presented in the plan is specific to the municipal development project. That is the redevelopment of the properties identified in the block uh that is bounded by Wintonberry to the north and park to the south and then the adjustments to Jerome Avenue uh to the east. And that budget uh is the big budget. It's the hundred plus million dollar budget which is for the complete project. That includes property acquisition. That includes construction costs. That includes infrastructure improvements related to sidewalks, roadways, and so forth and so on. The majority of that budget uh we assume would be covered by the private sector that is the commercial real estate development. But as we've said from the beginning of this public participation on the town of Bloomfield's part would

be needed and that's probably in the 20 to $30 million range. Could be less. I don't think it would be much higher than that. uh in the end all these numbers are going to be a moving target as this thing proceeds forward for those dollars. I think one, the council's current efforts to create what I'll refer to as a seed fund for the town center is extremely valuable and important. And then uh and that provides you leverage to actually go out to the state uh in seeking of grant funding and further government assistance to help you with that. Uh that being said, the town is going to have to have, you know, skin in the game and ultimately come up with funds to assist with this. How that funding plays out on the local level. Uh the least popular route would be probably a budget line item to say we're going to allocate 10 million or $15 million to this. That probably isn't going to work. But that's where other tools come into play. And for example, we did present information on utilizing the tiff district designation which I've sp spoken to in the past which is the tax increment financing. You can essentially use the future value the increment between the present value and the future tax value of the property once it's redeveloped to issue bonds. And then those bonds would be paid by that increment of the new tax revenue generated from the development. So the municipality goes out issues bonds and then the tax dollars are collected directly from the development to fund uh

the bonds that were secured for it. There are other tools within that method like credit enhancement agreements where it may be possible to negotiate that those costs are shared by the developer on the front end and reimburse through the same structure of the future value of taxes. The last budget that's identified in the plan and is new to you guys uh as a committee uh with the delivery of this plan because it was not discussed previously was ultimately when I had to create that phasing plan for how the development was going to take place and the costs that were associated with it. An additional budget was actually created to deal with the tenency. Uh that is the cost of either relocating tenants out of their current spaces to other locations or relocating tenants within the project area as was talked about with the typo uh comment. moving tenants from one wing of the building to another wing of the building to allow for demolition being done in phases and allow for the tenants to continue. There will be actual costs uh associated with those relocations that through a chapter 130 plan the town is responsible for you know paying for so that they're not harming those businesses. I believe I put an estimated budget in to be extremely cautious of about $5 million. Uh I was after the plan was issued to you guys, I was able

to gain some financial data from a town that recently did relocations and I was pleased to see that I believe my estimates are extremely cautious and very high. That being said, in the construction cost budget for the total project, we did also allocate tenant fido cost. They're not typically included within a large, you know, construction project like this, but since we knew or we anticipated there would be relocation costs and there would be some fit out of spaces, we actually allocated dollars in that overall budget in the construction dollars to deal with fit out. So I think some if not most of the relocations or at least the tenant fit outs related to the relocations could be absorbed into the bigger construction budget. But once again that will be yet to be seen at that point in time. So with trying not to go into too much further detail, let me just ask Mike if he has further comments and thoughts at this time. That's a good summary and I think the timing of your question is is good. Uh you know I think think you have to break the project uh or the work down into different phases. Uh typically there's an acquisition phase where a community is acquiring property that's been identified for potential redevelopment. So there's a cost related to the acquisition and that's not just buying it. That's all the legal work and so on that has to be done and to some degree other things like appraisals and so on. And then following an acquisition typically we see some demolition work done and uh often times some kind of environmental cleanup. It could be simple, it could be complicated, but uh you know when we're budgeting for it, we

we budget for the demolition and we also put a budget in for uh any environmental cleanup. And then the the third component at this stage is sort of understanding and and usually upgrading the existing infrastructure. So that's everything from water lines to uh storm sewer and sanitary sewer lines to utilities to sidewalks and you know changes to the road systems uh that service a given site and so on. So acquisition, demolition and cleanup and then uh infrastructure work that needs to be done. We have a few examples of of, you know, how that's been done around Connecticut. Uh the Showcase Cinema site over in East Hartford is a good one. Uh the town of East Hartford bought that site, the Showcase Cinema site, and did the things that I just described, demolition and cleanup and saw, and they're going to provide some funding for infrastructure. Beyond that, then it gets into the actual development and construction of the project. And as Don mentioned, you know, a lot of that funding is going to come directly from the developer of whatever gets put on a given site. Uh but in virtually everything we've worked on in Connecticut in the last I don't know five or seven years probably, there's been some level of public participation and uh in other words, municipal uh participation and that's where this gets a little more complicated. Don mentioned a couple of u mechanisms by which a municipality can assist in getting a a project that they're interested in seeing done uh in assisting to get it to the point where it's financially feasible. And it's things like tax increment financing and some of the things you you're familiar with like tax abatements and credit enhancement agreements, reductions in building permit fees. That's that's one

that we see increasingly as as uh if the project is a larger project uh you know anything along those lines uh that uh can help make the numbers the financial uh numbers for for the given project work. So on the funding side, I mean for the acquisition, demolition, cleanup and and infrastructure, uh you know, there's a a fairly wide range of uh potential sources. uh you know we right now of course uh we have a uh uh capital region development authority that provides lowcost loans and and the governor just maybe a year and a half ago formed what was initially called the municipal redevelopment authority basically uh structured along the lines of the CRDA but I guess it's going to I think they've actually changed the name now from municipal redevelopment authority to the Connecticut redevelopment authority So that uh we assume that that eventually as that gets up and running uh you know the intent of the Connecticut Redevelopment Authority is to sort of parallel the success of the Capital Region Development Authority in providing uh mostly infrastructure financing uh through lowcost or lowinterest subordinated loans and uh I mean it's it's uh it's a good way to do it. There's been a lot of infrastructure and acquisition funding done. Those first three categories I mentioned, acquisition, demolition, and and infrastructure work. And again, you know, you you can point to the work being done or about to be done at Showcase Cinema for all those categories and for the acquisition of the Silver Lane Plaza property and the demolition and environmental cleanup related to that. So, that's all coming out of the

CRDA. Uh Bloomfield doesn't have a specific allocation for CRDA, but uh I think as the Connecticut Redevelopment Authority gets up and running, it's going to be a potential avenue uh of funding. There's also a potential for an allocation through the urban act. Uh it's done uh essentially at the discretion of the governor's office and on OPM. Uh, additionally, you can get a specific allocation from the state budget. Uh, that would be part of the state's capital plan for development. That's a bit of a process. Of course, your local representative has to propose something and it's got to work its way through the legislative process. Uh, there's you're you're all familiar with with CIF funds, community impact fund grants. uh that's what Enfield is using to uh help uh fund the redevelopment of the old Enfield Mall property. And then the last one that comes to mind is uh most recently the governor announced a what he called the Greyfields program and that's an initial funding round as I understand it of $50 million in the bianial budget. So 25 million a year and uh you know that was just proposed recently. it'll probably make it through the legislative process and and become real, I would guess, in this session. So, you know, obviously there's going to be a lineup of municipalities that are looking to tap that funding for various projects, but um anyway, you know, it it's I hope that's not overly complicated, but this stuff does get a little bit complicated. It has to you have to tie the source of the funds to the specific use. So C, you know, by way of example, CRDA funds infrastructure and acquisition. Uh we use TIFF to fund development or tax abatements to help

fund development. So, you know, there there are a variety of ways and uh as this uh work in Bloomfield goes along, I mean, we're going to spend a lot of time talking about this uh because at the end of the day, that's what makes these things, you know, finally come to fruition is getting the uh the funding lined up and uh you know, I think clear certainly the leadership of Bloomfield has been proactive in having conversations around uh you know where whether there's possible sources of funding and as we go further I think those uh those conversations certainly are going to continue. Yeah. Thank you Mike. Any questions at all for my colleagues move forward about funding which is probably the biggest stumbling block that we're going to come across. How do we pay for Yeah, it is and it isn't. I mean, you know, it it can get really complicated, but we've been successful and that communities, we know of a lot of communities that have been successful. You know, it would be easily easy to get discouraged in this process and but you just can't you just got to keep working on it and and looking for wherever you can go for funding. So, well, Mike, I wasn't commenting in from a negative perspective. I'm saying that we just got to work through this because this is going to happen one way the other, right? We've been talking about this long enough and money is not going to be the reason why why this doesn't get done. Right. I agree. We're going to come up with the money, right? So, we're going to be okay. Yeah. I think there's an excitement. There's a there's an urgency to get this thing moving and as you the mayor has been very um aggressive, if you will and let's get the ball moving and we all ready to go. We've been doing this for about a year

now. We started March of of 2023 um 24. So we've done our part and uh and this committee will be involved engaged going forward as well. The question is um the next phase coming up with the money. We have the plan we have the public input make some tweaks bit on the public input. Then the next phase is we got to start the ball moving man. So that's exciting. That's energizing because I've been in this town for about 32 years now and I've seen the town center. every year gets it gets a little bit less less um engaged every year except for during the summer when we have activities on on the town green. Other than that, it's just is it's a dying property, you know. Um one of the comments you talked about, I think you mentioned earlier about some of adjustments uh what you're looking for. Well, I think one of the things I'm looking for is to have a is to have a a property that's going to be that's going to grow with the town, adjust with the town. I think one of the term that Don has used in the past is um you know these buildings, they become functionally obsolete, right? As as um as our economy, our society changes faster and faster, we need to have a property that's going to be able to adjust on the fly, right? I'm not sure what that is. That's got to be part of our thought process when we create something. Uh we don't want something that's going to be obsolete in 10 years because things have changed so fast. No one knew Amazon was going to exist 20 years ago. They existed now. Seiz is out of business. A lot of companies out of business because because uh because of how our economy, how the country has changed. So, I'm hoping that whatever we develop, we'll be able to adjust and change with the times as it transforms as opposed to having a big brick building sitting there where we can't do anything with it

because it's fun functionally obsolete. So, that's that's that that's something I'm going to be looking for as we move forward and u to refine the plan. Uh, I would invite my colleagues on the commission to if they have any comments before I ask for one adjournment. Yeah, I like to say um I'm pretty excited about the apartments. Um, some folks are, but I am. I mean, you drive around different areas like uh Newington, the the Brit new apartments over there. You know, you got Air Flats. Um, um, you have different areas of the state that's doing a lot of great things for the town and I think we need to do that as well. Um, the plan that we I feel we have in place, I think it's right where it should be. It's a it's it's it's the personality of the town of Bloomfield. It has a country style look. I think the town houses that that been the concepts, I think that'll work. Um, it just matter which one we really want. It's like a variation. So, I think that's going to be a play with that's where the town comes in with their flavor. What you want to look at. You want to see a brick brick facade like the school, like the library over here. Um, do you want that type of look? Um, you know, do you want a curtain wall look? Um, do you want sighting? So, um, I'm pretty excited about it and, uh, let's go. Thank you much. Any more comments, my colleague case? Hearing none, I will entertain a motion for adjournment. If there are no further questions or comments from our colleagues on the commission hearing none, I get a motion for adjournment. So moved. Been moved by Lenny. Can I get a second? I'll second. Thank you very much. Thank you, Miss Riley. Uh all those in favor of adjournment signify by saying I. I. I. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. And public, thank you for for being here. Thank you for participating and we look

forward to seeing everybody the entire town 20,000 plus of you in this room on a on on April 29th. All right, but I know I'm being a little bit physicious about this, but the point here uh as many input as possible will probably give us a better product at the end. The more people that come out and and make us aware of of what they are concerned about and it would probably create a better product for the town. So, please I encourage you to come out. I won't be here. Uh I I'll be remote because I I'll be out of town, but I'll I'll be I'll be present just just remotely. Okay. Thank you all very much. Enjoy the rest of the evening.