Update: Tri-Town Plaza owner Ron Spector and the town’s Board of Selectmen have hit an impasse over a proposal asking for a three-year tax break to jump start a community market Spector wanted to open in the property.
Tri-Town Plaza — home to several shops including a busy movie theater, hair salon, martial arts studio and pizzeria — has about 98,000 square feet of open space after an Ames department store and Adams food store closed several years ago.
In July, Spector said he submitted a “fairly detailed” letter to First Selectman Paul Roy detailing a plan to spur redevelopment.
Spector’s proposal included a three-year freeze on taxes — something Spector said would allow an idea to incubate in Tri-Town Plaza.
‘Community Market’
The idea — a 2010 take on farmer’s markets.
Spector wants to carve the empty space into a series of separate fresh food stores. Booths would also be available for rent by area farmers.
“All the individual stores would be individually owned. We were going to break up the space to have a deli, a produce store, a meat market, an Italian meat store, a fish market,” Spector said. “We were also going to have an indoor dining area with some restaurants. All these individual users would provide ready-to-eat food on the premises.”
The market would have been modeled after M & M Farms of Milford and Ring Bros. Marketplace.
Spector hoped to add restaurants to the mix — a natural, since a movie theater is on the property.
To help launch the idea, Spector wants the town to freeze his assessment.
“First we wanted a fair assessment of the value of the property,” Spector said. “Beyond that, we asked for a three-year hold at fair market value so that we could have a chance to lower the operating costs and give our vendors a chance to succeed.”
The community market has been put on the back burner, Spector said, without approval for the tax freeze.
Roy said the town has not made any decision on the proposal.
“There’s nothing to report,” Roy said.
Other Plans?
Spector said he’s still trying to find an anchor tenant — not easy in today’s market.
Spector has long been at odds with Seymour over the assessment of Tri-Town Plaza. Earlier this year the town agreed to refund Spector more than $170,000 in taxes, which settled a lawsuit Spector filed over his taxes.
The hope was that the deal would end bickering and spur redevelopment.
Roy Reacts
When asked about the Tri-Town matter, Roy said the town has asked Spector several times to speak to the Board of Selectmen about what he wants at Tri-Town. Elected officials want to see the property redeveloped as much as anyone, Roy said.
“When the lawsuit was settled back in May, our original intent was to have Mr. Spector come in and let us know what his plans were for the shopping center,” Roy said.
“Everybody (on the Board of Selectmen) said they wanted to meet with him. A few people have questions. No one is going to grill him or make him feel uncomfortable. We have a few concerns and we want to deal with him directly.”
A concern — Spector’s request for a tax freeze.
“It is not something that normally gets done in Seymour,” Roy said. “That is something we would have to discuss with the Board of Selectmen.”
In an e‑mail response to Roy’s comments, Spector said he has offered to meet with elected officials on an informal basis.
“It was my desire to keep political grandstanding out of the equation and to assess the level of support and address any criticism before I invested a considerable amount of time and money into the plan and presented it to the Board for approval,” he said.
What’s Next?
Earlier this month Spector said he’s had two companies look at Tri-Town in the past two months.
“There was a party that was interested in a tear down,” Spector said. “We showed the property to them several times. There was another group interested in a smaller space. We continue to market it every day.”
Part of the plaza’s problem — in the seven or so years Tri-Town has set partially empty, a number of grocery stores have opened in the lower Valley.
“It needs a grocery store as an anchor,” Spector said. “Unfortunately in the Valley grocery stores have been overdeveloped in the last five years, so we’ve been in a bind.”
Who’s Been Looking?
The Valley Indy quizzed Spector on a number of grocery chains who expressed an interest in Tri-Town.
Whole Foods: “Whole Foods cannot happen. The Valley is just not their demographic. We’ve had multiple conversations with Whole Foods. We just don’t have the population density or the income. It’s not even close.”
Trader Joe’s: “We’re on their fringe. They grow very slowly and they tend to grow in areas with a higher income profile. We have several conversations with Trader Joe’s as well, but they said we’re not in their demographic — but we’re on the cusp. We’re close. I think they would do phenomenal business.”
Stew Leonard’s: “We had conversations with them probably about four or five years ago. We just weren’t large enough to accommodate their box. It’s a big foot print. We’d love to have Stew Leonard’s. They’d have great access to Route 8.”
