Waterbury Mayor Paul K. Pernerewski, on Friday, informed two companies that applied to participate in the redevelopment of the 17.4-acre former Anamet manufacturing site that the city would not move ahead with either of their plans.
It’s a setback in a several-year effort to redevelop one of Waterbury’s most prominent brownfield sites. Once one of the world’s busiest brass manufacturing centers, Waterbury has spent significantly over the past decade to clear away the blighted remains of massive factories that went bust in the last decades of the 20th Century.
“Based on the investment that has been put into that property, we just didn’t feel like those proposals were the right fit,” Pernerewski said. “We didn’t think they were in the best long-term benefit of the city.”
The city, on Friday, sent notice to the two applicants: Waterbury-based Cornerstone Realty and the Industrial Realty Group, of Santa Monica, California.
Headed by prominent Waterbury-area businessman Jonathan Albert, Cornerstone Properties acquires and manages large industrial and office properties. According to its website, the family-run company specializes in repositioning and redeveloping highly distressed properties into “fully leased, high-quality, multi-tenant properties.”
Industrial Realty Group is a national real estate developer and investor specializing in acquisition, development and management of commercial and industrial properties.
According to its website, its portfolio includes more than 150 properties in 31 states with more than 100 million square feet of rentable space.
Friday’s announcement capped the second failed search for a developer or user of the Anamet property in two years.
In April 2022, the city launched another search that identified Waterbury-based indoor fish farm Ideal Fish as a potential buyer. Negotiations dragged on and, last September, then-Mayor Neil O’Leary announced the city’s decision to halt deal talks and launch a new search for a partner.
The latest RFP was issued Dec. 1.
The city will eventually issue a third RFP. However, before it does, economic development staff will reach out to companies that expressed interest but didn’t apply, to see what held them back, Pernerewski said. It will also advance an ongoing environmental cleanup, so the site has more appeal.
Anamet closed its complex at 698 South Main St., in 2000. The neglected site fell into ruin in subsequent years. Fires, vandalism, illegal dumping and drug activity plagued the site as the untended buildings started to crumble.
Located along the Naugatuck River near downtown Waterbury, the site enjoys easy access to Interstate 84 and Route 8. But it was polluted from over a century of industrial manufacturing, making any redevelopment prohibitively expensive without government intervention.
A redevelopment nonprofit formed by the city specifically for the Anamet project paid $650,000 for the property in 2017. The city has spent $2.8 million of its own funds and $4.4 million in state grant funding toward demolition, cleanup and repairs at the site. The Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments has also approved $500,000 for the
Anamet endeavor. It was unclear at press time how much of that has been expended.
Most of the city funding went toward replacing the roof of a 190,000-square-foot, high-bay warehouse building. Most of the state funding went toward demolition of eight of the 10 buildings that had been on the site.
All that remains is the warehouse and a small administration building immediately adjacent to it.
Waterbury Development Corp. CEO Thomas Hyde said the city still has access to $1.6 million in approved state funding. He expects to spend most of that on environmental cleanup of an area that had been under the powerhouse, the most polluted portion of the Anamet site.
Pernerewski said the Anamet project is important to the city’s ambitions for long-term grand list growth to ease the tax burden on residents.
“We need to have patience and make sure we find the right fit for that property, one that will give us the best return,” Pernerewski said. “We need to make sure it is the best, rather than rush into a project, just to have a project.”
