Enfield, with the aid of the state and a community development nonprofit, has after years of trying finally bought a dilapidated casket factory to one day reopen it as a bus-rail transit center, authorities say.
Enfield Community Development Corp. paid $165,000 for the approximately 12,000-square-foot, four-story building on 0.188 acres at 33 North River St., in the town’s historic Thompsonville section, Executive Director Darrin LaMore said Monday.
It’s working name is the Thompsonville Transit Center.
The nonprofit used proceeds of $350,000 brownfields-remediation grant from the state Department of Economic and Community Development in the purchase from what remains of former manufacturer Dow Mechanical of Enfield, LaMore said.
The town for years had sought to acquire the factory site dating to 1893 for redevelopment but never could for one reason or another, he said.
The site is in the next phase toward eventual redevelopment, with onsite drilling and soil testing under way to determine the extent of toxins in the surrounding soils or other hazardous materials inside or outside the structure, LaMore said.
Eventually, plans calls for demolishing down to the building’s interior walls and support beams to reconfigure an edifice suitable for commuters waiting to travel by bus and train between Springfield, Hartford and New Haven, he said.
Plans also call for reconfiguring a portion of North River Street, in front of the factory, to accommodate transit-center parking, LaMore said.
There is no specific redevelopment timetable for the building, but the town’s transit supporters say they are still working toward the state and federal deadline of completing all design work in 2014, for a 2016 to launch of expanded rail in Connecticut.
The transit station will eventually be part of the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield line which will also offer connections to New York and Boston, and in the future to Montreal, Canada. The station will also provide a bus stop for Magic Carpet locally and buses that run throughout the region and to Hartford and Springfield.
Enfield officials have said in the past they “guess-timate’’ rail service to the Thompsonville station would begin around 2020.
Enfield town officials did not immediately respond to a call for comment.
However, Courtney Hendricson, assistant town manager for development services, hailed the property’s purchase in a statement Monday as “critical in our overall effort to revitalize Thompsonville and to create transit options in the heart of downtown.’’
