How Does Your Business Park Garden Grow?

Buried deep within the earth of Gardner’s Nursery lurks a fertilizer powerful enough to grow something bigger than the biggest pumpkin and taller than the tallest sunflower: location.

Gardner, or at least his customers, have found that his land in particular has that key ingredient in copious amounts. That is why over the last year they’ve flocked en masse like birds of prey to his hundred-plus acres spread across Rocky Hill and Cromwell — “conveniently located next to I-91,” they point out — where they will grow something far larger and more profitable than mere agriculture.

Yes, business parks soon will sprout from Jack Gardner’s former fields. And understandably, the town of Cromwell wants a piece of the action. Officials there have enlisted the help of Gardner, several area developers and landowners and the Department of Economic and Community Development to make their dream of a 90-acre industrial park straddling the southern edge of Rocky Hill a reality.

And with town officials now saying they have resolved a key sticking point in building the park, widening the roughly 3-mile road winding through the park, that reality could be only months away.

The current thumbnail sketch of the park — now known as Coles Brook Commerce Park — involves constructing a U-shaped street off of Shunpike Road, better known as Route 3. That street would run along the southern edge of Rocky Hill and wind through roughly 30 undeveloped- and Gardner-owned acres along I-91. From there it loops back around through land owned by several other landowners — including the Arborio family, owners of Arborio Construction and the Slifer family, owner of Brothers Auto Body — before it connects back to Commerce Drive, a 12-acre business park built several years ago by Gary Dayharsh of Delta Building Corp. In all, the road will allow access to roughly 30 parcels of land, each between one and five acres.

Since the state traffic commission has certain requirements for a roadway to be deemed public — chiefly, that it’s 50 feet wide — up until now, the town had been unable to build the park without negotiating with neighboring businesses in Rocky Hill.

Those negotiations have apparently gone well. According to First Selectman Paul Bealiuae, the town has come to something of a gentlemen’s agreement with Sysco, which owns a major distribution center on a parcel abutting the road, that the town will get a roughly 15-foot wide swath of land that will allow it to build the road. Agreements are still needed with several other land owners, Beaulieu said. But with plans to extend the sewer system nearly complete, the deals to get the new park built appear imminent.

Nearly There

“We are almost there,” he said. “We’re right on the cusp of wrapping up the deal.” That’s good news; it’s been a long time coming. Cromwell, combined with state grants, has spent about $1 million on planning and even more to build the infrastructure.

Economic Development Director Craig Stephenson said the development cannot come too soon. A number of businesses have approached the town about setting up shop, but there are no real “shovel-ready” lots to show them. Once Coles Brook comes online, that all changes, he said.

That’s good, he said; the area along the Cromwell-Rocky Hill border is blossoming as a potential place for companies to open up. A lot of that stems from developments on the other side of Gardner’s Nursery, where earlier this year, Winstanley Enterprises broke ground on a major business park on the Rocky Hill side of Gardner’s Nursery, a 120-acre site on Brook Street that will be called Winbrook Office Park.

Although Winbrook will be comprised chiefly of flex space — adaptable to anything from office, to distribution, to biotech, manufacturing is generally frowned upon in Rocky Hill. It’s not that it’s not allowed, it’s just that it’s just, well, not done in Rocky Hill, for a variety of reasons. (See “Painting A Legacy In Rocky Hill,” April 16 issue.)

Cromwell, however, is less averse to having manufacturing in town, said Stephenson. And the park is being put together with high tech businesses in mind, he said, meaning that manufacturers will likely be among those checking out space in Coles Brook when it opens.

Stephenson said he’s been in negotiations for most of the year with a firm that does both biotech and battery manufacturing — one looking for about 40,000 square feet — although he declined to name the company. It’s a good indicator of the type of business Stephenson thinks could end up in Coles Brook, down the line.

“We’re getting a lot of inquiries,” he said. “We’ll listen to all of them.”

Kenneth J. St. Onge is managing editor of the Hartford Business Journal.