Allan Appel Photo
The city’s selling this lot, viewed from the south end of Blatchley.
Know any canoe and kayak makers, propeller repair shops, or bait-and-tackle stores looking to expand big time? If so, city economic development officer Helen Rosenberg wants their number.
Hers is 203 – 946-5889. She’s looking for someone to buy the spacious lot at the base of Blatchley Avenue where the Quinnipiac and Mill rivers meet creating a touch of marine majesty and running out to the harbor.
The city bought the site in Fair Haven’s Mill River district in December for $2.75 million from the Amerada Hess Corporation. The city stepped in to buy it after a deal it was brokering, for Colony Hardware to expand into the site, fell apart. Rosenberg has been spearheading an effort for years to breathe new life into abandoned factories along that stretch of town.
When Colony backed out of the deal, Hess agreed to cap the long-empty and long-polluted property. That job nears completion in the spring. Rosenberg said she will then pump up the volume to market the property to a job-creating and preferably maritime-focused business.
Rosenberg said city had been considering the purchase for 11 years, ever since the Board of Aldermen approved and set aside $10 million in 2001 for land acquisition as part of the $20 million River Street Municipal Development project.
“I wanted to close a lot sooner,” Rosenberg said.
The $2.75 million sales price was based on reconciling appraisals that both the city and Hess obtained. It reflects the tanks Hess placed on the property (and subsequently took down in 2006).
“We didn’t want them [the tanks] but they paid for them [along with other improvements]. We signed a sales agreement in December 2005, and the idea was they’d clean the soil, and then we’d close, and find someone to build,” she said.
The property, designated as 100 River St., had to receive amelioration for serious contamination. When Colony was brought into the picture, Hess organized the clean-up to suit Colony’s prospective buildings and other needs.
The negotiations with Colony and Hess went on for four years, Rosenberg recalled with a sign
“When they [Colony] took off, we went back to the drawing board with Hess to rework the clean up,” she said.
Without having to choreograph the clean-up around specific plans for a building and a parking lot, Hess is nearing finishing the clean-up with an overall capping with soil and grass seed, Rosenberg said in a telephone interview.
The clean-up, which also includes transporting the more seriously contaminated soil off the premises and regrading with new soil, will soon be finished, according to Rosenberg.
“We were going to sell it to Colony for $580,000. We’re not looking to make money in the sale. We’re looking for investment, for someone to [come in] and to create jobs; $580,000 was the appraised value of land to Colony.
“If someone makes a proposal, we’d appraise it again before we go to the Board of Aldermen, because the board is the [ultimate] decider on whether a price is acceptable.”
Rosenberg pursued the marine idea some years back: “We sent letters out to boat builders in New England, but we weren’t ready for them. We didn’t own the land [at that point] and it wasn’t cleaned up.
“Now we are.”
Do you mean, Do I want to buy a brownfield site?