Sal Brancati has a new plan for the old Simkins paper recycling plant: tear it down, build it up, and bring manufacturing jobs back to the city.
Brancati, a former development director for the city, pitched his new idea to the City Plan Commission on Wednesday night. The plan, Brancati explained, is to demolish the Simkins building, a long-struggling paper recycling plant that shut down in 2006, and replace it with a new factory. Brancati told the commission that he has already contacted a potential buyer for the property, at 259 East Street, and hopes to create new manufacturing jobs for New Haven.
Demolitions don’t usually come before the City Plan Commission. But such a large and potentially messy tear-down requires City Plan oversight. The board gave its unanimous approval to the planned demolition, which will mark the end of the factory’s 105 year history.
The demolition is predicted to take three months and cost 1.8 million dollars.
The approval was a marked contrast to the reception that Brancati received for his previous Simkins proposal. In 2007, the city shot down his plan to shrink-wrap garbage at the plant.
While most of Wednesday night’s applicants appeared at the City Plan Commission meeting in sharp-looking suits, Brancati and his co-presenters addressed the board wearing leather jackets.
On the right sat Simkins Industries’ Frank Camera, wearing tooled leather cowboy boots. Brancati, acting as an agent for Simkins, was in the center. On the left was Gil Lipscomb, project manager for Testa Corp, the Massachusetts-based demolition company that will be in charge of the tear-down.
Lipscomb explained that the building will be crushed, its cellar will be filled with rubble, and the site will be leveled over. Other debris will be hauled to a landfill in Pennsylvania, a decision that Brancati said had met with approval from the state of Connecticut. “They’re always happy when you take debris and put it in another state,” he chuckled.
Lipscomb assured the board that the demolition would have little impact on East Street since the demo site is so close to Interstate 91. Trucks will be able to get on the highway just a block away.
“The bigger picture is the re-use of the site,” Brancati told the board. He explained that the demolition was necessary in order to make the property more attractive to investors. Brancati said he is actively looking for manufacturing companies to occupy the site. He said he has “been in discussions” with a manufacturer working with stainless steel. He declined to give the name of the company, but said that it operates facilities in Turkey, China, India, and Vietnam. “I’m trying to get them to consider the U.S.”
Brancati said that with the site leveled, it will be easier for buyers to envision their facility there. Simkins will build a facility to suit the buyer, if possible. “Hopefully, to get a manufacturer back in New Haven would be the goal,” Brancati said.
Outside of City Hall’s Meeting Room One after the pitch was approved, Camera stressed that the goal of the project was to attract industry to New Haven, create jobs, and generate taxes for the city. He said that the site should be a very attractive one for a manufacturer, since it has both water and rail access.
Part of why Simkins went out of business is that ...hang on...wait for it...
its cheaper to take our recycling paper goods, put them on a boat that goes all the way across the ocean to China, recycle the paper there, remake paper boxes etc there, and then ship them back to the US for sale.
This is completely insane. China's economy is based upon cheap dirty coal power plants, cheap dirty deisal shipping fuel, and in many instances near slave labor.
Common sense trade laws would put carbon and fair labor tarrifs on Chinese goods and that is NOT protectionism...its just common sense.