Much Interest Expressed in Development of Guilford Pages Lane

GUILFORD, CT - A number of businesses, and groups in Guilford, have expressed interest in developing the Pages Lane property, which was purchased by the town it the 1970s for the purposes of building a sewage treatment plan.

Town Planner George Kral and Economic Development Coordinator Brian McGlone gave the Board of Selectmen a status report on the site at the board's Jan. 2nd meeting.

Kral told the selectmen that in 2013 the town received two inquiries concerning use of the property from Petra, who wanted to develop the site for residential use and Horton/Navtec, who was interested in building a sewage disposal system with capacity provided for the Arrow Paving and Navtec/Lumar sites, both envisioned as residential developments.

But nothing came out of the initial inquiries.

Today, Kral said there are four parties still interested in the site - Horton/Navtec, Arrow Paving, the Guilford Yacht Club, and the Shoreline Arts Alliance, who hopes to develop the property into an arts/performance facility with a possible 150,000-square-f00t development.

McGlone said there was about 12-14 buildable acres on the site.

Kral said the town needed some direction from the Board of Selectmen on next steps. He suggested one possible way to move the project forward was to redo the request for bid process and not require as much in the way of design and site planning - at least initially.

The board agreed that was a good way to go and might jumpstart the project again. The board also agreed to keep residents in the neighborhood informed of progress on the plans.