The Road Nowhere: On The Road To Becoming The Road to Somewhere

DERBY — An abandoned lot located by BJ’s Wholesale off Division Street has found a new owner.

A proposal from Schrade Roosevelt LLC to buy and develop the property was unanimously approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission on the evening of June 16.

This took place a month after a public hearing for the application was held by the commission on May 19th.

The 14.4-acre site is located east of the commuter railroad station and west of a Naugatuck River flood control dike. The area is accessed via a dead-end road that was constructed in 2012.

“It’s been vacant forever,” said Derby’s Economic Development Liaison, Carmen DiCenso, of the property.

George Schrade, owner of A-Quick Pick Crane and Rigging Service, purchased the parcel in order to expand his business, which is currently located on Water Street and between Roosevelt Drive and Park Avenue in west Derby.

Schrade’s plan is to build a 40,000-square-foot warehouse for large vehicle storage. The land will also be used for outdoor storage. The new site will not only be used as a second location to store Schrade’s own equipment, but allow Schrade to rent storage space to other industrial businesses.

“There’s really not much else that could have been done there,” DiCenso reasoned. The area is already zoned for industrial use, so the crane and rigging rental and consulting company seemed like a “natural fit,” in the words of Andrew Baklik, Derby’s Chief of Staff.

The crane company currently also stores equipment — large containers, drainage pipes, sometimes cranes — in a parking lot on Park Avenue that is supposed to be for residential use only, but was allowed to be used otherwise by the city after a lawsuit.

Baklik said that the road that passes behind BJ’s and leads to the property “was built with the idea that it would be the gateway to future industrial use, but it had remained empty for many years.”

DiCenso noted that the road cost about $2 million to build, despite the fact that it has served no purpose for years. It became known as as “the road to nowhere.” in Derby political circles.

“Schrade’s purchase of the road and adjacent property will provide the city with some much needed cash as well as a viable tax paying business for many years to come,” said Baklik.

As Dominick Thomas, the local attorney representing Schrade, remembers, the property itself was originally a part of the Naugatuck River. After the flood of 1955, the area was filled in with concrete and asphalt. “Since 1986, this has been less than a pristine property,” Thomas said at Tuesday night’s meeting.

When the city bought the property back from old owners, multiple administrations attempted to put the property out to bid.

“It’s always failed,” DiCenso said.

Last year, however, Schrade, the only bidder, offered the city’s full asking price of $325,000 for the land.

The past seventh months have, according to Thomas, been spent working through not only the basic ideas for the design and development of the property, but on environmental review.

The site has been approved by the Inland Wetlands Commission, but it has been recognized as a difficult area to develop. Multiple man-made wetlands are scattered throughout the property due to decades worth of disturbances to the land. 

“Mr. Schrade’s buildings will represent a vast improvement to the overgrown property,” said Baklik. 

“He’s going to do extensive work,” DiCenso added. ​“That swampy area will be cleaned up!”

The site also had many Army Corps of Engineer easements, though Thomas has said that they will only have to engage with the Corps if they decide to excavate more than five feet deep on the property, which they currently do not intend to do. 

The industrial property sits next to the Derby Greenway, a busy river walk. The crane company is being asked to plant trees to shield the property from the river walk.

Now that the regulatory process is coming to a close and ​“the eventual conception drawings are done,” the next steps include figuring out more details about the type of building which will be constructed on the property and ordering an official title search. ​“It’s crossing a few T’s and dotting a couple I’s” summarized Thomas.