🔒After years-long delay, Windsor’s Great Pond Village development eyes biotech research center, data center, major industrial tenants, more housing

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Windsor’s Great Pond Village mixed-use development experienced more than a decade of delays and many plan changes before its first phase debuted in 2019, with the opening of the 230-unit Preserve at Great Pond luxury apartments complex.

Now, additional development on the 653-acre site is accelerating, with construction set to begin this June on a 750,000-square-foot distribution center; fill-up/retail plaza; and $15 million in road and infrastructure work.

Several other projects are lining up, including a data center, age-restricted residential community, 185 units of additional housing and a research and development facility for an international biotech company, according to Adam Winstanley, a principal for Massachusetts-based Winstanley Enterprises, which is Great Pond’s master developer.

“Things are accelerating right now, and it will super-accelerate once all the road infrastructure is in, because it is a lot of land and people don’t really understand what’s really happening here,” Winstanley said.

About 60% of developable land at Great Pond is already either purchased, under contract or deep into negotiation for sale, Adam Winstanley said.

Selling points

Winstanley was chosen in 2008 by ABB Combustion Engineering as a partner in development of the company’s site along Day Hill Road and now is co-owner of the property. ABB spent about $150 million cleaning the site, which had once served as a testing facility for nuclear propulsion as well as a center of nuclear fuel production for submarines.

The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection last November signed off on cleanup of what had been the most heavily-polluted sections of the property, Adam Winstanley said. That allows build-out of Great Pond’s northern portions, including a 93-acre site where Massachusetts-based NorthPoint Development will build the planned distribution center.

Just south of the NorthPoint building site is a 40-acre parcel open to light manufacturing or a data center under Great Pond’s master plan. Winstanley said his company is in talks with a Fortune 500 company interested in building a data center there, but that no agreements have been signed.

That would be the second potential data center for Great Pond Village.

Last November, Verizon paid $3.4 million for a nearly 30-acre property within Great Pond, where it plans to build a data center, according to Windsor development staff and Winstanley representatives.

Verizon declined to discuss its plans for the property.

Linda Costanzo, senior vice president and asset manager for Winstanley, said completion of the Preserve at Great Pond apartments spurred further interest in the overall site, as has a growing scarcity of alternative development sites in the region and state. (The Preserve at Great Pond apartments, which had recently been more than 90% occupied, sold last summer for $63 million to a New Jersey-based real estate investment firm.)

“Like everything in life it’s timing and I think the timing is right — where the market is, the Preserve being completed, a limited supply in and around the market,” Costanzo said.

A 40-acre parcel along Day Hill Road is under purchase contract for a new biotech research and manufacturing center, according to Adam Winstanley.

The new fueling station — on an 8.6-acre site — will include a convenience store, electric vehicle charging stations, ice-cream shop, car wash and, potentially, a brewery, Costanzo said.

Another 34-acre site is under contract to a developer with plans for a 55-and-older residential community, Winstanley said.

Separately, Winstanley plans to use 30 acres building a mix of 185 “starter” houses, duplexes and townhomes featuring a “thick” package of amenities. More than half of that $100 million development will be single-family houses, he said.

One of Great Pond’s big selling points is its inclusion of numerous natural amenities, including miles of trails winding through woods, past Great Pond and the Farmington River. There are plans for a pondside park and perhaps even a bird-watching tower.

Winstanley worked with the town to create a special zoning district for Great Pond Village that leaves about half the site as open space. The plan details what types of development are allowed in different areas, right down to design elements such as types of siding that can be used.

The district allows town planning staff rather than government boards to sign off on project proposals, meaning a significantly shorter permitting process.

In addition, up to half of property taxes generated by new development within Great Pond Village will be used to pay for new roads, utilities, sidewalks and other infrastructure within the site.

“The town of Windsor is extremely forward-thinking to create basically a site with its own taxing district,” Winstanley said. “I’m not aware of anything else in Connecticut that has been quite like this.”

Evolving plans

Plans for development within Great Pond Village have changed considerably over the long run-up to construction. Winstanley said market shifts prompted a big reduction in residential density and the addition of industrial space.

In 2008, the master plan called for 4,010 residential units, 85,000 square feet of retail space and 768,000 square feet of office space in addition to research and development and community spaces and a hotel.

Now, the plan’s main components include 865 housing units, 970,000 square feet of flex industrial space and 750,000 square feet of warehouse space. There will also be much smaller footprints for food and beverage, commercial, retail, car wash, convenience store and clubhouse spaces.

Adam Winstanley said his company has spent $7.5 million fostering Great Pond through planning and permitting over 14 years.

“This kind of development is not for the faint of heart,” Winstanley said. “This is a long journey. It’s extremely capital intensive and time intensive.”