Board Hears Dissent Over Parkade Purchase

Voters may have had their say in a referendum last year, but Tuesday night a handful of residents told the Board of Directors that they did not think the town should spend $2 million to purchase the dilapidated Broad Street Parkade property.

"What I'm concerned about is the end cost," said resident Bob Samuelson during a public hearing designed to allow citizens an opportunity to comment on the proposed purchase.

Samuelson noted that the abandoned shopping plaza that occupies the 19-acre property on Broad Street, which the town is eyeing to purchase in hopes of spurring redevelopment of the area, was built atop a brook and wetlands. He said he was troubled that the Board of Directors wanted to commit to buying the site without thoroughly investigating precisely how much it would cost to remediate and redevelop the area.

"A swamp is still a swamp," he said. "You can't just cover it up."

While resident William Parker called the parcel "an environmental danger zone" that served as a dumping ground for years before it was developed into the parkade. Parker said he was also concerned that the board wanted to commit to buying the property before it knew the extent of the environmental damage to it.

Dan Moran said he thought the town could find a better, more creative use for the land than merely buying it from its current private owner, demolishing the buildings onsite, and then selling it off to another private developer, who would likely include some form of commercial or retail contingent in any new development.

"I go to other towns and see these nice giant corporate type buildings, large industries, and then I look at what we have in Manchester," Moran said. "Stupid malls that I think in years to come will dissipate."

Once a thriving shopping center, the vacant retail spaces at the plaza that comprise 324, 330, 334 and 340 Broad St., began to lose ground and occupants to a neighboring shopping center on West Middle Turnpike and the Shoppes at Buckland Hills mall in the early 1990s. The plaza has been almost completely deserted since 2000, while it continues to deteriorate into an eyesore. Friction between the current owners of the Broad Street Parkade and the owner of the neighboring West Middle Turnpike parkade has further hindered development efforts.

The Manchester Redevelopment Agency was charged with crafting a plan to revitalize the entire 150-acre Broad Street area in December of 2008. After failing to find a way to coerce the current owners into redeveloping the property or selling it to another developer, the agency has recommended the town buy the parcel for $2 million. The purchase, agency members say,  will allow the town to demolish the buildings on site and make other improvements to the parcel that might make it more attractive to a potential developer.

"We don't want to be landowners. We feel as though we can increase the value of it by knocking it down, by working on the greenway behind it," Timothy Devanney, who serves as chairman of the Manchester Redevelopment Agency, told the Board of Directors and the public Tuesday. "…I think everything that we do will add value to it, but I think we'll get that value back when we try to sell it."

Devanney said that the current purchase agreement the town is operating under is non-binding if the site is found to contain significant environmental damage, but that there was no way to know the extent of any damage without being allowed to do an environmental assessment of the property, which the purchase agreement facilitated. 

"We keep hearing people tell us that we need due diligence on the property," Davanney said. "Well, nobody's going to let you onto the property to do due diligence until we enter into what we're entering into."

In November of 2009, voters approved a referendum question that gave the town the authority to spend up to $8 million on revitalization efforts in the area, including the ability to acquire property, by a vote of 5,433 to 4,154. Voters rejected a citizen-driven referendum to purchase the same property for $8 million in 2006.

Despite the critical comments made by the about half a dozen residents Tuesday night, Mayor Louis Spadaccini said he felt that a majority of townspeople has already made it clear through the referendum that they wanted change at the property, even if it meant the town had to step in to achieve it.

"I think the public hearing that I put the most weight on is the one that occurred on Election Day just over a year ago," said Spadaccini.

Several members of the Board of Directors even apologized to Devanney and Robert Schneider, another member of the Redevelopment Agency who appeared at the meeting, for the disparaging or critical comments about the proposal made by members of the public.

"I can only apologize for any negative comments or any insinuations made to you by ignorant mouths over this," said Mark Tweedie, a Republican member of the board. "We haven't bought this yet. This is not a done deal."

After the hearing, which was required by local and state laws to move the purchase forward, the board did not hold a formal vote to consider the purchase. General Manager Scott Shanley said that vote would not come until after the assessment of the property has been completed.

"One of the conditions set forth in that purchase agreement is that the town of Manchester will not buy the property until the Board of Directors makes a formal vote on that," Shanley said. "The actual vote to purchase the property or to not purchase the property will not be held tonight. It will be at least a month before that vote takes place."

Earlier in the evening, the meeting was delayed for more than 30 minutes due to a smoking overhead light. The fire department was summoned to investigate, although the room was not evacuated. Fire personnel deemed the Lincoln Center Hearing Room safe to continue the meeting as long as the light was not switched on, and so the meeting continued in the dark.