With Federal Help, Shelton Riverfront Redevelopment Rolls On

A $200,000 federal grant will help evaluate possible environmental contamination at several former industrial properties fronting the Housatonic in River in Shelton.

Mayor Mark Lauretti accepted a novelty check on the city’s behalf Wednesday on a property that he and other officials said showed the value of government investment in redeveloping such properties, which dot downtowns throughout the Valley.

“When I come down here, I always remember what it looked like 25, 26 years ago,” Lauretti said while standing under the Richard O. Belden Pavilion at Veterans Memorial Park.

The land was the former home of the Sponge Rubber Products factory, which burned down in a massive 1975 fire. Now it’s a beautiful park bound by Canal Street and the city’s Riverwalk that hosts a myriad of events, from the Valley Shakespeare Festival, summer concerts, and the annual Soupstock, just to name a few.

“The befores and afters are incredible,” Lauretti said. ​“It’s extremely telling. You couldn’t see the river (before). You couldn’t get to the river.”

“We all at times find ways to criticize government, and probably for good reason,” the mayor said. ​“This certainly is not one of them.”

Earlier this year Lauretti announced plans to run for governor.

The grant announced Wednesday will pay for assessments of contamination at four properties at the north end of Canal Street, between Wooster Street and the old Shelton locks, which gave Canal Street its name.

A aerial picture from the Shelton Economic Development Corporation with the subject properties outlined in red is below.

The properties are:

• 235 Canal St., the former site of the Apex Tool factory;

• 255 Canal St., the former site of Better Packages, which moved to Ansonia in 2014;

• 267 Canal St., the former site of the Star Pin factory;

• 281 Canal St., which has hosted a number of businesses throughout the years, including Charter Arms, which moved to nearby Brewster Lane in 2012.

A conceptual long-term ​“master plan” envisions the properties eventually being redeveloped into a number of uses, including condos, retail, parking, and offices.

Master Plan Rev 3 – 29-16 Plot (1) by The Valley Indy on Scribd

Deborah Szaro, Acting Regional Administrator for the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s New England Region, said the grant is the eighth the city has received since 2005, the most of any community in Connecticut.

As she spoke, Szaro noted the din of bulldozers digging at the nearby former Rolfite site, the future home of a 14,00-square-foot commercial building.

“The noise in the background is really the punctuation mark that work is going on here,” she said.

Szaro said the EPA has invested $2.2 million in rehabbing brownfields in Shelton, and the state has kicked in more than $10 million.

The money paves the way for more investment from private developers.

“A little bit of brownfields money for assessment and cleanup goes a long way,” she said.

Rob Klee, the commissioner of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said the city has ​“set an example” for other communities trying to help redevelop former industrial communities.

In the lower Naugatuck Valley, those properties — mostly empty former factory buildings — are a huge hindrance to downtown revitalizations.

Think the former Farrel Corp. and Ansonia Copper & Brass properties in downtown Ansonia, for example.

So what’s so special about Shelton?

A number of factors, Lauretti said after Wednesday’s event — among them the fact that he’s been in office since 1991, as well as the city’s Shelton Economic Development Corporation, a quasi-public nonprofit group that helps oversee development efforts.

“When you have people in place for multiple years, like myself, (former SEDC President) Jim Ryan, John Anglace and the Board of Aldermen, you have a consistency and a continuity of an agenda that is able to be carried out,” Lauretti said. ​“A lot of places, if a mayor is there in a for four, six, eight years and they leave, the ball gets dropped. That never happened here.”

Paul Grimmer, who became president of the SEDC, noted that the redevelopment along the city’s riverfront has been going on for more than two decades.

That fact was hammered home by Terry Jones, a fifth-generation farmer and current head of Jones Family Farm, who brought a sign promoting a mid-1990s referendum on the redevelopment to Wednesday’s event.

“This project has been going on since 1996, and we’ve really seen some good progress,” Grimmer said. ​“I think in the next year and a half the progress will explode even further.”