Decades after his vision turned a tobacco field and other Buckland Hills land into Connecticut’s biggest retail engine with more than $1 billion in annual sales, developer John Finguerra says the area, especially nearby Evergreen Walk, is poised for even more growth in 2011 and beyond.
“I’m confident about where things are headed,” Finguerra said. “Retailing is stabilizing after a very difficult couple of years. I think retailers have weathered the storm and are beginning to bounce back nicely.”
Finguerra, who began work on developing the Buckland Hills area in Manchester and South Windsor in 1972, said there have been discussions with numerous retailers interested in the area. (He declined to name them.) There is also an opportunity, he says, for more restaurants, apartments, offices and hotels at Evergreen Walk in South Windsor.
“We have the land and the retailers identified, in addition to other commercial users, who want to locate here,” he said. “I’m optimistic about more growth.”
The development of the Buckland area has generated about $200 million in taxes over the past 20 years for Manchester and South Windsor. Some officials estimate that the area has produced about 4,000 full-time jobs.
Commercial broker Michael Sarasin said Buckland Hills, particularly Evergreen Walk, is ripe for new business, which would bring in more tax revenue and jobs for the area.
“I see an influx of retailers on the horizon. The Buckland area had more than $1 billion in retail sales last year. That’s quite a number when you think about it,” said Sarasin, a principal of Northeast Retail Leasing & Management Co.
“Unquestionably, the Buckland area has fared the best among shopping centers in Connecticut over the last few years,” said Sarasin, whose territory is Connecticut, Massachusetts, southern Vermont and the Albany, N.Y. area.
With most of the land in Manchester already developed, Finguerra has turned his attention to land that today is home to Evergreen Walk in South Windsor.
Finguerra has about 70 acres remaining from his original 243-acre Evergreen Walk tract for which he could seek town approvals for further development, including a town square and park. He already has the green light to build two hotels, 200 housing units, about 350,000 square feet of additional retail space, and 400,000 square feet of office space at Evergreen Walk.
Except for several freestanding stores and restaurants, Finguerra owns all of the remaining acreage at Evergreen Walk, including tracts on which sit LA Fitness and the medical-office campus of Eastern Connecticut Health Network.
“When I travel to White Plains, N.Y. or places like Framingham, Mass. and their contiguous markets, I see big retailers that are there but not here. I am confident that they will be coming here in the future,” Sarasin said. “There is some vacant space currently at Evergreen Walk, including the former Highland Park supermarket, but there is also a great opportunity for retailers new to the area to come in, including some very high-end retailers on the scale of Nordstrom’s.”
Finguerra said that from a population standpoint, Connecticut has room to grow east of the Connecticut River, and that will bring a greater need for retailers.
“In the last 10 years, the majority of new home construction has been east of the river,’’ he said. “In sheer numbers, there are more households with $75,000 or more of income east of the river than west of the river.’’
With more development likely in store for the Buckland Hills area, the question of whether it is “over-stored” brings strong dissent.
“I think everyone, including myself, has been surprised by the growth of the Buckland Hills area,” said John Anderson, the retired president of the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, who watched most of the area grow and still follows its progress.
“That said, however, I really believe the area can expand even more,” Anderson said.
Sarasin agreed. To buttress his argument that the Manchester-South Windsor retail corridor can accommodate more growth, he points to the continued expansion of the sprawling Tyson’s Corner retail complex in Virginia, outside the nation’s capital.
“There are about 45 million square feet of retail and office space in Tyson’s Corner … They have two malls right next to each other that are 50 percent bigger than Buckland or Westfarms, and a third one is being built,” Sarasin said. “They are all owned by the same group, which will build a fourth mall. That’s how it works.’’
Much of the success of the Buckland Hills area in the last 20 years is attributed to its proximity to an important New England crossroads — the I-84 and I-91 interchange.
“With I-84, I-91, I-291 and Route 2, you have a million shoppers who are within about a 30-minute drive to Buckland, and that, in many ways, is the reason for Buckland’s huge success. It’s easy to get to,” said Mark Pellegrini, Manchester’s director of neighborhood services and economic development.
Pellegrini recalled the mall opening in 1990 and the enormous growth surrounding it in Manchester and South Windsor that quickly followed, surprising many.
Finguerra and his late business partner, Richard Ripps, were involved in about 75 percent of the development of the corridor, in addition to acquiring the government permits and purchase options on the land where the mall was eventually built by Homart, then a subsidiary of Sears Roebuck & Co. General Growth Properties now owns the mall.
The development of the Buckland area has been an economic boon to Manchester and South Windsor.
“At the time, the Hartford area was under-stored,” Pellegrini said. “We expected maybe another shopping center and some other retailers to come in. But I don’t think anybody expected what happened.’’
Finguerra and Ripps, along with the Trammell Crow Co., also developed the 932-unit apartment complex in Manchester known as The Pavilions at Buckland Hills. Other housing development has followed.
Nowadays, the retail development’s property taxes have been a blessing for the revenue-strapped towns.
“Easily, more than $3.3 million in taxes has been generated this past year by Evergreen Walk and the businesses Finguerra developed across the street,” said South Windsor Assessor Charles Danna.
“That’s a substantial portion of our budget. The average house in South Windsor contributes between $7,000 and $8,000 in taxes,’’ Danna said. “To understand it better, the town would have to add at least 450 houses to match the revenue these businesses bring in.’’
“The Buckland area is a huge employer,” Anderson said. “It has been and continues to be a blessing for Manchester, as well as South Windsor.”
Ted Cummings, who chaired Manchester’s Democratic Town Committee for 47 years until 2008, recalled voters’ mood when asked in the late 1980s to approve an $8 million referendum to fund the mall’s infrastructure.
“Residents wanted the mall, but they didn’t think that public money should be spent on a private project, and they defeated the referendum by only a few hundred votes,” Cummings said.
After that, private and public financing assembled to fund the infrastructure.
“People didn’t realize at the time how valuable the mall would be to Manchester,” Cummings said. “We are benefiting every single year as a community from the Buckland Hills mall. People have no idea how much it has helped us. They don’t realize just how much John Finguerra and Richard Ripps have done for this town.”