🔒Ball & Socket property redevelopment aims to give Cheshire a coveted arts, entertainment district

Cheshire has a lot going for it: a robust commercial sector featuring big distribution, nursery and aerospace businesses, excellent housing stock, a median household income of $120,000 and some of the state’s best schools.

But while the town of approximately 29,000 is clearly thriving, it can be — well — a little boring.

“We used to say, ‘Cheshire is a nice place to live, but I wouldn’t want to visit there,’ ” quips lifelong resident Ilona Somogyi.

A decade ago, Somogyi and two of her fellow Cheshire High School graduates decided to do something about that. Wanting to give their town some pizzazz and make it more attractive to young people, the three set out to buy the derelict 3-acre Ball & Socket Manufacturing complex on West Main Street and transform it into an arts and entertainment district. They teamed with others to create a nonprofit, Ball & Socket Arts, to carry out their vision.

Now after years of hard work and big assists from the state and town, the first phase of that transformation is coming to fruition. Next spring, Sweet Claude’s Ice Cream will set up a shop and an ice cream making operation in one of the buildings. Other tenants have committed to move into the building’s second floor, according to Ball & Socket Arts Chairman Ron Bergamo.

That’s just the beginning. The plan is to eventually fill the remaining five main buildings with everything from a tap room and performance and gallery space, to a food court, bike shop and even office space, Bergamo said.

“We’re ready to go,” he said. “We had a belief. The state had a belief and the town government had a belief.”

Cool architecture

For longtime Cheshire-ites, the property exerts a powerful pull. For more than 140 years, Ball & Socket, which made buttons, was a major employer in town. It was said that sooner or later, everyone in town worked at “the button shop,” according to Ball & Socket Arts’ website.

“This was the largest employer in Cheshire for 100 years,” Bergamo said. “You really couldn’t run into someone in town who didn’t have a relative who worked there, or who worked there or who knew someone who had worked there.”

The first factory opened at the site in 1850, and the present structures were erected between 1899 and about 1920. While there were renovations over the years, the complex’s six buildings remain handsome examples of classic old time factory architecture. The red brick and wooden structures feature cast iron posts, checkerboard factory windows, lattices of interior girders, exposed ductwork and heavy steel doors the size of truck cabs mounted on rails.

Perhaps the most unique artifact is the complex’s massive 1899 coal-fired boiler (it was later converted to oil). The arts center plans to clean up the towering two stories of iron and make it the centerpiece of a bar named — you guessed it — the Boiler Room.

Cool architecture isn’t the only thing the old factory complex, which closed in the early 1990s, has going for it, said Bergamo and town Coordinator of Economic Development and Grant Writing Andrew Martelli. There’s also its location in the West Main Street business district and the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail, which runs next to the complex.

The town has done streetscape improvements to spiff up West Main Street running in front of the complex, they said. The hope is that walkers and bike riders — the Cheshire section of the trail is the most heavily traveled, averaging more than 600 users a day — will take a break to grab a beer or bite, Martelli said.

The arts and entertainment center, Martelli added, also has the potential to be something that Cheshire lacks: a walkable downtown area.

“I think that the Ball & Socket project will tie the whole West Main Street business and neighborhood together and create this true community center for the town,” Martelli said.

He predicts the complex will also attract businesses and juice economic development. A business is already looking at moving into a space on West Main Street, in part, due to the coming arts complex, he said.

The state has been a vital partner in the Ball & Socket Arts project, Bergamo, Martelli and Somogyi said. It provided the initial loan to buy the property and funds to remediate asbestos, lead paint and heavy metals from the site, work that is almost complete, they said. Earlier this year, the State Bond Commission approved another $1.5 million in funding in addition to approximately $2 million the state has already spent, Bergamo said.

Not all the funding is coming from taxpayers. Ball & Socket Arts is also seeking to raise another $2 million from the community through donations and the sale of merchandise. One program gives people the opportunity to sponsor restoration of a window.

Bergamo estimates it will take three to five years to fully build out the complex.

“As we cross milestones, we’re hopeful that once we get more done and proof of concept, it will get even more people behind it,” he said.