WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) - In the beginning, Waterbury’s dream of building a linear park along the banks of the Naugatuck was about luring people back to the river’s once-dead waters.
But in 2012, at the urging of urban planners, the city decided to expand its riverfront trail plan to include downtown by reinvigorating its fallow industrial corridor and a struggling business district.
The downtown proposal, if successful, will add 2.3 miles of riverside trail to the 2.2 miles to be built in the South End in 2015, leaving three miles of trail in the north to reach Watertown and Thomaston.
The 7.5-mile riverfront trail through Waterbury would tie into a 44-mile regional greenway that would hug the banks of the Naugatuck from Derby to Torrington.
But it is the links to Waterbury’s downtown that make this $28.8 million phase of the greenway concept so different, pushing it beyond mere recreation to incorporate an economic resurgence.
The links include a walking and bike path along a completely rebuilt Freight Street and a pedestrian bridge linking a proposed riverfront park to a refreshed train station and Library Park.
The city is spending $2.2 million in state and federal funds to double parking and restore a waiting area in the train station, and the state is spending $6.7 million to improve branch line signals.
Waterbury also is sprucing up Library Park, installing a public bathroom, repainting the band shell and turning it into the city’s go-to park for all festivals, like Brew Fest and Back-to-School expos.
The concept also calls for rebuilding and expanding Jackson Street along an abandoned rail bed under the Mixmaster, through a redesigned Freight Street, and north to West Main Street.
The new Jackson Street would intersect Freight between the MacDermid and Brass City Lumber properties, and empty out to West Main Street across from Heritage Auto Sales.
City officials believe this infusion will kick-start redevelopment of Freight Street, where they claim 60 acres of fallow industrial land awaits transformation into a mixed-use transit district.
Slowed by a weak economy, tainted by a century of industrial use, the city touts the ambitious plan as the “last major redevelopment opportunity with the potential for a transformative impact on the city.”
The city believes completion of a riverfront trail, a biking and walking path on Freight Street, expansion of Jackson Street and new mixed-use zoning will lead to private investment and redevelopment.
In seeking grants for the project, Waterbury predicts that completion will trigger creation of 1,900 to 3,800 new residential units downtown and along the river, mostly in the Freight Street area.
According to the consultants, people will be willing to pay more to live near the trail, as much as 4 percent more within a quarter mile and 2 percent more out to a half mile away.
Consultants predict a $4.3 million boost to nearby land values.
The value of new buildings and site improvements built in the Freight Street District over the next decade would surpass $150 million, Waterbury leaders said in pitching the project to federal officials.
The concept has changed so much that the city no longer calls it the Naugatuck River Greenway, but WATER - Waterbury Active Transportation and Economic Resurgence project.
Last week, the city submitted an application for a $19 million federal economic stimulus grant to pay for about two-thirds of the project. The rest would come from the city or state.
Mayor Neil M. O’Leary said he is confident that he can obtain state funding to cover at least part, if not all, of the $10 million city share, although he said it is too early to say how.
He is so confident that he refuses to say how much it will cost taxpayers if the city had to pay the entire $10 million. It isn’t that it would be that burdensome, he said, but it is irresponsible to raise the issue.
“It’s not going to happen, so there’s no reason,” O’Leary said.
Nonetheless, the downtown phase will be the hardest to finish because of the amount of land and easement acquisition required. The city’s consultants are estimating it will cost $1.4 million for right-of-way acquisition.
While many landowners have welcomed the greenway, some are resisting, saying that having a greenway run behind their land will decrease its value and take away parking or storage.
So far, the project has met with unanimous support from both sides of the political aisle in Waterbury, with only a few questions from members of the minority parties. Most residents have spoken in favor of it.
The Board of Aldermen unanimously supported the project in January, agreeing to a $10 million local match even though it was more than originally touted and the waterfront park is gone.
Waterbury is the only big Connecticut city this year seeking a Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grant, or TIGER. The other known state applicant is a rural town.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has announced it has $600 million to give out in this grant round, but it hasn’t publicized how many applications it had received as of last week’s cutoff.
The city is paying $1.3 million to RBA Group to help it design the downtown phase of the project and to seek federal funding in an ultracompetitive grant environment.
In past years, the U.S. DOT received requests for more than 20 times the amount of money it had to give out, with demand far outstripping supply, according to the DOT website.
Cities have started to outbid one another for the TIGER grant funds. The minimum city match is 20 percent of project costs, but cities like Waterbury are now pledging to pay a bigger share.
At RBA’s urging, the city scrapped plans for a riverfront park on Jackson Street because those awarding the grants don’t look kindly on using stimulus money to build playgrounds.
To keep its application competitive, the city will convert the 9 acres of land now owned by Yankee Gas into a grass lawn that can one day become the iconic park originally envisioned.
Four Connecticut cities have won TIGER grants:
New Haven, 2010: $16 million to convert Route 34 from limited access highway to urban boulevards.
Bridgeport, 2010: $11.2 million to reconstruct 4.6 miles of streets and add .75 miles of walk and bike paths linking to train station and waterfront.
Stamford, 2011: $10.5 million to improve, expand train and bus station.
Hartford, 2012: $10 million to connect Main Street to train and bus station.
Connecticut is paying the local share of TIGER grant funded projects in Stamford and Hartford, the last two state cities to win TIGER grants, O’Leary said.
The U.S. DOT expects to announce the winners of this year’s TIGER grants in September. If Waterbury doesn’t win this year, it will reapply next year. New Haven needed two tries, officials say.
Either way, the city will continue to pursue a downtown link to the river trail, and will continue to slowly expand the riverfront path north until linking to proposed trails in Watertown and Thomaston.
“It will happen, sooner or later,” O’Leary said. “I’d prefer sooner.”
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Information from: Republican-American, https://www.rep-am.com
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