Berlin weighs $2.6m offer from mall
In Berlin, mall means windfall.
The developer proposing to build a 167-acre shopping center straddling the town's border with Hudson has agreed to give Berlin $2.6 million if residents approve new zoning for the project at the Special Town Meeting session on Wednesday night.
SullivanHayes Cos. Northeast, based in Farmington, Conn., is offering to contribute $1.5 million to support open space, affordable housing and other local projects, $300,000 for traffic improvements and $200,000 for the town's capital spending. The developer's offer also includes an annual payment of $570,000 for Berlin's Police and Fire departments that would be adjusted for inflation and paid to the town in perpetuity.
The perennial fire and police funding "is a considerable addition," said Selectman Thomas Andrew at a Planning Board hearing on May 1. For this fiscal year, Berlin's spending on public safety is $1 million, out of a total budget of $8.4 million, officials said.
The Highland Commons mall is also expected to generate $700,000 to $1 million in tax revenues, Andrew said.
SullivanHayes has also offered to test water wells, mitigate ground-water pollution, and give cash payments to mall abutters, said Arion Mancuso, a Gates Pond Road resident whose backyard would face the mall. Mancuso said the payments were tied to property values, but he declined to discuss amounts, saying the neighborhood and developer had agreed to keep them confidential.
His neighbors support the zoning changes, saying they are being affected anyway by the construction work on Hudson's portion of the project, said Mancuso. The developer has removed hillsides, shifted earth, and razed trees on both sides of the town line. "We may as well get into the process and make the best of a bad situation," he said.
The new offer is an expanded version of a similar package Town Meeting members rejected three years ago. At the time, Hudson approved the proposal on its side and construction began. Since then, Berlin officials have been voicing support for the project, telling residents that the town would likely have to deal with traffic and other issues regardless of whether the mall extends over the Hudson line.
"What we have now is a site that is very significantly prepared for development," said Andrew. "It no longer has value as open space or habitat. It is very close to an interstate highway. It really is an unstable situation."
The new zoning, if approved, doesn't completely clear the way for the mall to be built in Berlin. The Planning Board must approve the builder's plans, a process that could take months once the zoning change is allowed.
The proposed new zoning would create a so-called "overlay" district on residential and agricultural-zoned land that would be tailored for the SullivanHayes mall.
"This is sort of the beginning of a process, a very public process," said John Twohig, a lawyer representing the developer who spoke at the board hearing. "It's not a pig in a poke."
SullivanHayes principal owner Jed Hayes said he hopes stores on the Berlin land could open in two to three years.
Around 87 acres of the project would be in Berlin, situated off Route 62 and Gates Pond Road and near Interstate 495. The Berlin portion of the mall would include numerous smaller stores to accompany large retail outlets such as Lowe's, which has already announced it will set up in the mall's Hudson side.
Because SullivanHayes has yet to go through the Berlin planning process, it hasn't drafted traffic studies for the town. But studies for the Hudson portion predicted that 15,000 vehicles would visit the mall during weekdays, with the number rising to more than 20,500 on Saturdays.
Some residents at the Planning Board hearing were skeptical the financial package would bring yearly property-tax increases to a halt. They noted that the town received a similar windfall in 1994, when the Solomon Pond Mall was approved in south Berlin, off Interstate 290. Lean times gobbled up the mitigation package soon after it was received, they said.
"Things are no better than then," said Bob Amici. "In fact, they are worse."
