Middletown’s Common Council and developer Glenn Russo of Landmark Development LLC dropped plans to bring a 130,000-square foot department store, such as Target, to Main St. Russo has until May to submit another concept for developing the property, which is located behind the Police Department headquarters and alongside the Connecticut River, stretching from Dingwall Dr. to Washington St.
“I think a lot of things made people uncomfortable about a large discount retail store,” said Mayor of Middletown Sebastian Giuliano. “Target was bandied about as a potential retailer but it was never official. In the end, no one was overly excited or convinced that this was exactly what Middletown needed.”
A main concern in the City Council was that the big-box project would have spent most of the $18 million in federal money intended for improving Middletown’s parking facilities. Local business leaders and merchants were also concerned with the proposal because it would have required the city to purchase six businesses along deKoven Dr. Other buildings, such as Capitol Liquor on Main St. and Valentino’s Strip Club on Court St., would have had to been demolished.
With the big-box plan rejected, Russo will continue to present ideas to an economic development panel consisting of Common Council members. At the moment there is no official concept regarding the development of the property up for consideration, not until Russo modifies his original plans and returns to the panel.
Russo also made moves toward presenting his ideas in a more open forum, scheduling four public meetings to be held in the City Hall over the next five weeks. Russo said that the intention behind the meetings was to invite the Middletown community to hear alternatives to a big-box department store, including a skywalk over the river and an ice rink. He hoped to broadcast the meetings over the government channel, so that those incapable of personally attending the forums in City Hall could still view the presentation on television.
“Considering that this involves a multi-million dollar project that involves public funding, I don’t see why we can’t broadcast public forums so that way more people will be informed,” Russo said. “We’re trying to open up the process and keep the general public involved and the mayor doesn’t seem to want it.”
Giuliano quickly opposed the plan for publicized meetings in City Hall out of concern for propriety, and the meetings were canceled.
“There’s a big difference to me between a private individual promoting his concepts in City Hall and a committee of the City Council holding a public meeting there,” Giuliano said. “Public workshops in the council chambers was not appropriate since this would imply a level of support from the City Council that just was not there yet.”
Downtown Middletown has had a long history with big-box retailers, starting in the mid-1960s when the City Council brought in a Sears store. The branch relocated to nearby Meriden, CT, in the early 1990’s, and the vacant building was refashioned into the Middletown Police Department. Shapiro’s, a family-run mall located on 485 Main Street, also went out of business in 1987 and became a series of boutique shops.
“Middletown’s got great restaurants but it doesn’t have great retail shopping,” Russo said. “The idea behind bringing in a department store was drawing people to downtown, and then they’ll walk to Main Street and have an ice cream and a haircut and whatever it is that people do.”
Russo was hired in 2005, during former Mayor Domenique Thornton’s term. The original concept for developing the two-block property involved an office building, a ring of boutique shops and a small town green. The office building was an attempt to bring 1,000 new jobs to Middletown by attracting a Mortgage Lenders facility. However, after Mortgage Lenders chose to settle instead in Wallingford, CT, the big-box concept for Main St. was born.
“The gist of the department store idea was that it would have captured traffic off Route 9 headed to Meriden,” Giuliano said. “It would have acted as an anchor to Main Street. But in reality, that traffic would never have even seen Main Street. It would have gone straight through the town. In the end, it didn’t seem like it would really be benefiting Middletown in the way that it was presented.”
Professor of History Philip Pomper, a longtime Middletown resident, reflected on the aesthetic benefits of a Target-free Main St.
“I’m to hear that we’re not going to have a huge box dropped into our modest but thriving central city,” Pomper said. “I admit to a bias against giantism, whether industrial or commercial. Also, I’d rather shop around than be forced into a herd of shoppers in a single venue.”
Hannah Dreier ‘’08 echoed Pomper’s sentiments.
“Maybe we don’t need corporate America invading Middletown,” she said. “That’s why we don’t need a Starbucks and we don’t need a Target. We do have a Cold Stone, but that’s not so bad.”
Leave a Reply