A Connecticut auto dealer’s latest multimillion-dollar plan for apartments and more retail along Berlin’s prime commercial corridor has been approved — the first under the town’s new “floating zone’’ ordinance.
Executive Auto Group CEO John Orsini won town planners’ approval Sept. 5 to develop a 72-unit apartment community and adjoining 18,000-square-foot mixed-use building at 196 Berlin Turnpike, near Deming Road. The development estimate is $10 million to $12 million.
Orsini’s latest apartment-retail project would be located on acreage one block north of the 8-acre Berlin Turnpike Acura dealership-retail site he developed in 2017.
Berlin’s planning and zoning commission, after extensive study and public comment, approved the new floating zone May 2, town records show.
Berlin town planner Marek Kozikowski, in a May 6 memo, said the floating zone is intended to promote more diverse development, particularly more affordable housing, along the Berlin Turnpike, which draws 40,000 cars daily.
Orsini has done commercial, residential and industrial development in Berlin and elsewhere in Connecticut.
In 2016, Orsini acquired 8 acres at the intersection of Deming Road and the turnpike, adjacent to CVS, on which he built a 29,000-square-foot showroom-service center to which he relocated Acura of Berlin. Orsini also erected an 18,000-square-foot retail plaza adjoining the dealership.
Executive Auto Group has more than a dozen dealerships, including Acura of Berlin, covering 14 automotive marques, according to its homepage.
