Developer withdraws plan to bring 420,000 cubic yards of fill to redevelop Berlin brickyard

A Utah developer has withdrawn its plan to haul 420,000 cubic yards of fill to a long-vacant Berlin brickyard, putting on hold a redevelopment proposal that had raised concerns about truck traffic through a residential area. Berlin Industrial Redevelopment LLC notified Town Planner Maureen Giusti of the withdrawal in a Sept. 3 letter. The Planning and Zoning Commission’s chairwoman read the letter into the record that evening. It gave no reason for the withdrawal. BIR had sought approval to raise and stabilize the grade of the 57-acre property at 303 New Britain Road, creating a development pad for two commercial buildings totaling 44,000 square feet and a commercial contractor’s yard. The property, owned by Connecticut Sand & Stone Corp., operated as the Donnelly Brick Co. from about 1900 into the 1960s. It has been vacant since the early 1980s. The redevelopment proposal relied on Connecticut’s Large-Scale Beneficial Filling Pilot Program, created under Public Act 21-88. The program allows the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to authorize select sites to accept lightly contaminated fill for redevelopment. BIR said using conventional clean fill would make the project financially impractical. Truck traffic emerged as a major issue during the town’s review. Public Works Director and Town Engineer Michael S. Ahern estimated in a May memo that transporting the fill would require about 26,250 truckloads over roughly 250 days, or about 105 trucks a day. A Berlin police traffic officer estimated trucks could arrive every 3.5 to 4 minutes through an unsignalized driveway shared with Prentiss Place, a residential complex with about 90 units. The commission opened a public hearing on the application July 23. BIR twice sought extensions under state provisions allowing additional time for review. Town approval was required before BIR could apply to DEEP. The developer had been targeting state approval by mid-2027, with construction continuing into 2030. The Sept. 3 withdrawal letter was signed by Michael Clark, senior vice president of Industrial Development Advantage LLC. It identified BIR as a subsidiary of IDA Power LLC. Clark did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the developer plans to refile the application.