In Brookfield: Sidewalks, Economic Development Goes Hand-In-Hand

By Scott Benjamin

BROOKFIELD – Now, 235 years after it was incorporated, Brookfield is having a serious romance with sidewalks.

Regarding the 198-acre Brookfield Town Center, near the Four Corners intersection of Federal Road, the town's Community Development Specialist Greg Dembowski, says, “Almost nowhere else in town is there sidewalks. If you’re going to have high density housing, you’re going to have shops then you are going to need sidewalks because people are going to be want to have a place to walk.”

With considerable state money, three phases of streetscape have been installed since 2017 with another two on the drawing board.

Dembowski remarked, “The only way we get funding for projects like this is to follow the [state] Complete Streets program, which requires sidewalks,” he remarked.

“We also have a trail, and that trail and sidewalks go hand in hand for a friendly downtown,” Dembowski said of the Still River Greenway, which opened in November 2016.

“It is the second most used trail in Connecticut.,” he added in an interview with Patch.com. “On a summer day all the [on-street] parking spaces are full as people walk the trails.”

What a contrast. Less than 15 years ago – before the opening of the Route 7 bypass - there were an estimated 30,000 vehicle trips per weekday through the Four Corners intersection and making a left-hand turn was more difficult than negotiating the Major Deegan 10 minutes after a Yankees victory.

Former Other Selectman George Walker - the marketing director for Brookfield Village, a major mixed-use component in the Brookfield Town Center - said there are now an estimated 15,000 vehicle trips per day at the intersection, but he doesn’t anticipate it will grow to 20,000 in the near future.

Following a presentation by Dembowski on February 6, the Board of Selectmen agreed unanimously to hold special town meetings to approve two more components in the New England-style central business district.

Dembowski said that through the first three phases of the streetscape the state has paid $4.44 million of the overall cost of $6.8 million.

The special town meetings had been initially scheduled for February, but, according to Dembowski, due to a “technical” issue they will now be held in mid-March, pending approval by the Board of Finance.

One of the special town meetings will be on acquiring state Local Transportation Capital Improvement Program (LOTCIP) money for the fourth phase of the streetscape, which will go north of the Four Corners from the Agora Restaurant to the Newbury Village age-restricted housing

The expenditure is not to exceed $3.82 million. Dembowski said that all but $450,000 will be provided by the state.

At the other special town meeting, voters will consider a state Department of Economic and Community Development grant to demolish and remediate the last brownfield site in Brookfield – the former dry-cleaning business at 20 Station Road, across from Brookfield Village.

Dembowski said the applicant plans to seek a waiver through the Zoning Board of Appeals to not have any commercial activity on the first floor, as the regulations call for. The project is to have 54 to 59 apartments.

Dembowski told the selectmen that the town would select a contractor by December 2023 for the work and demolition of the current building would be completed within 60 days. Construction is slated start in March 2024.

During his February 6 presentation, the selectmen also unanimously approved applying to the state for $320,000 – including a town match of not more than $64,000 – for an engineering design to extend the Still River Greenway north from Newbury Village on Federal Road.

Dembowski emphasized that Brookfield Town Center is the number one priority in the town’s Plan of Conservation & Development.

But it includes high-density housing, which many Connecticut suburbs have resisted.

Stephen D. Eide of the Manhattan Institute wrote in the Wall Street Journal in 2018 that in Connecticut’s suburbs, “High-quality, low-density living remains one of the state’s chief draws.”

“There is inadequate housing in the region, not just Brookfield,” Dembowski said. “There were not enough apartments” in the town, which ranks 29th in wealth among Connecticut’s 169 municipalities.

“It is needed for young professionals,” Dembowski commented. “The nurse starting out, the new school teacher. Can they afford a $500,000 Colonial? ‘No.’ They’re going to get a condo or an apartment.”

Walker said in a phone interview with Patch.com that phase three of Brookfield Village is under construction and scheduled to be completed by the end of this year. By then will be a grand total of 125 apartments at the complex.

He emphasized that most of them are priced at “market rate,” and there is a waiting list.

Dembowski added, “Coming to this area is more than just about apartments. You have a medical center there, you’re going to have a supermarket, Ace Hardware. I don’t think any of that would have happened if those businesses didn’t have a customer base right there.”

He said through last summer and fall either he or the Brookfield Chamber of Commerce held a ribbon-cutting “every other week.”

Brookfield Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Susan Murphy said there has been a perception until recently that there was too much housing and not enough commercial activity at Brookfield Town Center.

“That is changing now, because people see the action and how businesses have occupied the spaces, for example, on the first floor at Brookfield Village,” she added in a phone interview with Patch.com

Commented, Dembowski, “The two most common questions I get are, ‘When is Food Emporium opening and when is Amazon Fresh opening,’ “

He recently told Patch.com that Amazon Fresh is definitely coming. Food Emporium, which has been under construction since 2021, is scheduled for an opening in Spring 2024. There will be other commercial outlets at that site as well as housing.

Yet, if you look around the metro Danbury area and there usually is a lack of parking in the central business districts.

Dembowski said Food Emporium is setting aside 40 public parking spaces. Walker said there will be additional public parking developed in phase three of Brookfield Village.

Dembowski added that under the proposal for housing at 20 Station Road, in addition to the parking for the tenants there would be 20 to 25 parking spaces made available for the general public.

Democratic former First Selectman Ken Keller conceived the Brookfield Town Center concept in the late 1980s. The opening of the Route 7 bypass in 2009 made it possible, since it re-routed much of the through traffic near the Four Corners intersection.

In an October 2021 interview with Patch.com, state Sen. Stephen Harding (R-30) of Brookfield – then the state representative from the 107th state House District – said constituents had expressed “frustration” that the Brookfield Town Center had not been completed.

Harding, who was praised by Dembowski, in helping to acquire state funds for the project, emphasized at the time that he understood there were many obstacles in getting each phase of the Brookfield Town Center developed.

Dembowski - who indicated that he devotes 50 percent of his full-time job to economic development and the other 50 percent to capital management - said, “We have the support of the town. The hard part, which no one sees, is the work it takes to apply for a grant, be awarded the grant and then execute the grant. Two years before a shovel goes into the ground we spend time getting grant money. It is a competitive process. Then getting state approvals, because of doing all our work on a state right-of-way. It takes time.”

Dembowski - who worked as a project manager for Union Carbide for 25 years and then held a similar position with the YMCA of Western Connecticut – commented: “The momentum may slow down because of inflation or whatever is coming down the road, but it is not going to stop.”

Resources:

Interview Greg Dembowski, Patch.com, Thursday, February 2, 2023.

Brookfield Board of Selectmen’s meeting, Monday, February 6, 2023

Phone Interview with George Walker, Patch.com, Tuesday, January 31, 2023.

Phone Interview with Susan Murphy, Patch.com, Tuesday, February 14, 2023.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/whats-the-matter-with-connecticut-1543014527

https://patch.com/connecticut/...