Great Pond Village, the proposed billion-dollar mixed-use development for Windsor’s Day Hill Road corridor, has identified and is closing in on a pact with a “vertical developer” to erect the first of hundreds of houses, apartment units and commercial buildings, its promoter says.
Meantime, regional water-sewer provider Metropolitan District Commission says it’s in the final stage of reviewing engineering specifications for Great Pond’s drinking-wastewater infrastructure.
MDC’s blessing is necessary before Great Pond can launch groundwork on the 653-acre former brownfield’s first phases, according to Winstanley Enterprises, Great Pond’s co-landowner and horizontal developer.
Great Pond is billed as the most significant residential-commercial development in Greater Hartford in decades. When built out in 15 to 20 years, the site will have drawn $1.5 billion in development, ultimately a significant contributor to Windsor’s tax coffers and to the regional economy, experts say.
Principal David Winstanley says his firm is negotiating with a national firm, “one of the largest in the United States,” to serve as Great Pond’s “vertical developer.” He withheld ID, pending a signed pact.
“Vertical” describes the party responsible for erecting houses, buildings or other structures in a subdivision. “Horizontals” typically handle the “flatter” elements, such as cutting and paving roadways, and laying curbing, sidewalks, electrical, communications and sanitation lines, and power substations.
Winstanley plans to initially sell two tracts to the “vertical developer” — three acres fronting Day Hill Road, the other 10 acres abutting its namesake pond — on which would be built 310 to 350 apartments.
Those land sales could still close by July, with horizontal construction starting soon after, Winstanley said.
MDC lawyer Christopher Stone said MDC has gotten a review-report from its consultant about Great Pond’s proposed water-sewer infrastructure. Stone declined to publicly share the consultant’s findings and recommendations, saying MDC “will communicate with Winstanley shortly.” Winstanley said at press time he had not gotten that report.
Master-planned residential and commercial developments such as Great Pond typically lay their own drinking and wastewater piping, pumps and related systems. Once operational, those private waterworks undergo a one-year “maintenance period,” Stone said, after which the developer may petition MDC’s board of directors to consider whether to accept responsibility for maintaining it as part of its regional waterworks.
Meantime, efforts at a $12 million “bridge loan” from the Capital Region Development Authority to stake Great Pond’s first phase are “dead,” Winstanley and CRDA say, forcing Winstanley to pursue several other financing options.
Winstanley Enterprises, of Concord, Mass., and Swiss engineering-automation-power services conglomerate Asea Brown Boveri are partners in Great Pond.
– Gregory Seay
