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A consultant helping the town of Windsor chart a new course for its 3,000-acre Day Hill Road business corridor delivered on Thursday its initial market potential assessment.
Multifamily development; senior and assisted living; and warehouse manufacturing/industrial flex spaces were listed as “high potential” options for the area, which is filled with high-vacancy office buildings in need of repurposing, according to a presentation delivered by Camoin Associates at Windsor Town Hall Thursday night.
The next best options included eateries; convenience stores, retail and service shops; sports and recreation; affordable hotel options; and medical office.
At the bottom of the potential list was life sciences and traditional offices.
Office space used to be a hallmark of the Day Hill corridor, as insurance and financial service companies flocked to an area designed with them in mind. Those offices have hollowed out due to the post-pandemic acceptance of remote work, prompting the town to hire Camoin to an $89,870 contract for a report on the area’s development potential, with consideration of local residents’ preferences.
A final report is expected in mid-February. This will be used to help mold the town’s land-use plans and regulations so the area can be redeveloped.
Already, developers are eyeing multiple Day Hill Road properties for redevelopment potential, said Patrick McMahon, Windsor’s economic development director.
“We’ve chosen to fast-track this study for Day Hill Road because we actually have private sector interest in various properties along Day Hill, asking what they can do with various parcels and whether or not there would be any flexibility in our current zoning regulations to allow what they are looking at,” McMahon said Thursday night.
The Day Hill Road area already blends logistics, apartments and retail spaces with large suburban office complexes. Altogether, the 326 properties in the corridor are assessed at $700 million, or 20% of the tax value in the town. Office properties represent more than half of that value, but it’s waning as they go increasingly empty, noted Tom Dworetsky, vice president and director of research at Camoin.
More than 2 million square feet of office space in the Day Hill Road corridor is currently available for lease or sale, about 60% of the overall inventory, Dworetsky said.
“There is a large, large amount of space that realistically isn’t going to get filled in the foreseeable future, so we have to rethink what is possible in the corridor,” Dworetsky said.
Windsor has seen an explosion of warehouse and logistics development over the past decade, adding 6.6 million square feet of new buildings, according to Camoin. That’s 45% of new logistics inventory added in that time to the Hartford metro area. While there is certainly a high potential to add more, Camoin’s interviews with local residents show they have little appetite for it, raising concerns over excess traffic, noise and bad aesthetics.
“Certainly, more warehouses could be viable, they are certainly viable in the market,” Dworetsky said. “Results of the engagement study so far suggest people might not want any more of that, but there is lots of demand for it.”
There is also demand for advanced and specialty manufacturing space, Dworetsky said, as well as smaller industrial buildings for roofers, contractors and other trades.
Residents told Camoin they’d like to see more restaurants; recreation and entertainment options; spaces for small businesses and startups; parks, open spaces and walking trails; as well as housing.
Prompted by a question from an attendee, McMahon said there has been some interest in converting office properties into multifamily developments.
“Developers are kicking the tires on some buildings, I won’t identify them,” McMahon said.
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