The 19-acre project would add 125 apartments while renovating nearly 60,000 square feet of commercial space in South Windsor.
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A long-planned redevelopment of a South Windsor shopping plaza with 125 apartments and nearly 60,000 square feet of commercial space is moving forward with land-use applications, five years after the project first won conceptual approval.
REESG Properties LLC – whose principal is attorney Eliot B. Gersten – has restarted the approval process for its planned overhaul of a 19-acre site that includes a vacant shopping plaza previously anchored by a Geissler’s Supermarket.
The developer proposes merging abutting properties at 959, 1017 and 1079 Sullivan Ave., into a single development site.
The proposal would retain and rehabilitate three buildings on-site, including a 50,372-square-foot, 1965-vintage shopping center; 1,984-square-foot, 1958-vintage service station; and 2,552-square-foot, 1990-vintage bank building. Four three-story apartment buildings, along with a clubhouse and pool, would be added alongside the renovated commercial properties.
A 5,040-square-foot, 1970-vintage building that formerly hosted a Hot Leathers store would be demolished to make room for residential development.
Town officials signed off on a zone change and conceptual plan for the development in 2021. The town Planning and Zoning Commission would now have to approve detailed site plans. The proposal also requires approvals from the Inland Wetlands Agency and Water Pollution Control Authority.
REESG recently submitted its wetlands application, marking a renewed push to advance the project after several years of little visible activity.
“We are excited to have it come forward,” said Michele Lipe, South Windsor’s planning director. “It’s been a long time coming.”
Attempts to reach Gersten Monday morning were not immediately successful.
The residential portion would include two 36-unit buildings, one 41-unit building and a smaller 12-unit building, for a combined 125 apartments, according to the wetlands application.
The development would also include a roughly 3,400-square-foot clubhouse with a fitness center, leasing office, game room, event space, café and bathrooms serving an outdoor pool area, according to plans presented to the town’s Architectural and Design Review Committee in 2021.
The original proposal called for renovation of about 60,740 square feet of commercial space along with construction of the apartments. The town’s Architectural and Design Review Committee reviewed the concept in March 2021 as part of a request to apply the Sullivan Avenue Mixed Use Development Overlay Zone to the property.
The commercial center’s exterior would also be substantially revamped, using varied materials, rooflines, masonry and other architectural features to break up the long shopping-center façade and give it more of a streetscape appearance.
The existing shopping center’s basic footprint would remain, with its façade renovated and interior spaces reconfigured as tenants are secured.
