The president of a development company eying the Derby redevelopment zone said he’s lined up a major potential retail tenant who is expected to tour the site along Main Street in the next 30 to 45 days.
“(We’re) still very positive about the site,” Douglas Gray of Eclipse Development told two members of the Derby Redevelopment Agency during a meeting in City Hall Tuesday.
Gray was tantalizingly short on specifics, since leases have not been signed — so there was no talk of what retail tenant wants to possibly move to Derby.
“The major tenant we had the meeting with likes the site (and) is going to tour sometime … over the next 30 to 45 days,” Gray said. “All the other tenants are lining up real well for the site. We’re hopeful sometime this summer we can get everything nailed together.”
Derby’s redevelopment zone stretches along the Housatonic River on Main Street from the Derby-Shelton bridge to the former Lifetouch property next to the Route 8 ramp.
There are a number of private property owners in the redevelopment zone. Eclipse Development is close to purchasing one of the properties along Main Street, Gray said. However, he did not say which property.
He had previously been in negotiations with the owners of the former Lifetouch property.
See the video for his full comments to the Redevelopment Agency.
Redevelopment Agency chairman Joe Bomba and Greg Russo were the only members of the agency able to attend Tuesday’s meeting. The meeting wasn’t canceled because Gray was scheduled to fly back to California, where his company is based, Wednesday morning.
Route 34 Reconstruction
The Valley Council of Govenment’s Rick Dunne gave Derby officials an update on the $12 million Route 34 (Main Street) widening project.
That project is directly connected to the Eclipse project because the redevelopment zone is off Main Street.
It involves the stretch of Main Street from the Derby-Shelton bridge to roughly the entrance to Home Depot.
While the project will expand Main Street so that the road has two lanes in both directions, Dunne and Mayor Anthony Staffieri described a construction project that will transform the road into something good for the local economy — as opposed to a speedway to rush traffic though downtown.
“This will not be a highway that will divide downtown Derby,” Staffieri said. “We’ve been fighting against something like that every day for months.”
Some highlights of Tuesday’s discussion on the Route 34 widening:
- There will be two lanes in each direction — east and west
- The project’s design is preliminary at this point
- A number of buildings that sit on the south side of Main Street will have to be demolished to make way for the expanded road. The state Department of Transportation will be in contact with property owners whose land needs to be “taken.”
- A public information meeting will be held in early or mid-August
- The feds are expected to pick up 80 percent of the costs, with the state picking up 20 percent
- The new Main Street will include lots of decorative antique lighting, large signs pointing out business locations — and a full median decked out with trees and other plantings. The idea is to make Main Street more pedestrian friendly. The idea is also to use the aesthetic touches as a way to “calm” traffic so that motorists slow down, Staffieri said.
- The speed limit will be 25 mph
- A portion of Minerva Street will become a one-way street from its intersection with Main Street heading north (i.e., heading away from Shelton toward Griffin Hospital)
- A portion of Elizabeth Street will become one-way, southbound toward Main Street
- Construction could start between October 2012 and October 2013 (that’s tentative)
- The project will take a year to complete. Main Street will not be closed during construction.
- A new parking lot will be built on the south side of Main Street, near the Derby-Shelton bridge.
- Better-suited parking spaces will provided along the expanded Main Street
