STATE AGENCY APPROVES FINAL MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR STORRS CENTER
Author: LeylandAlliance LLC
02/27/2006
STORRS, Conn. (February 27, 2006) - The Mansfield Downtown Partnership, Inc. and the LeylandAlliance team have announced the final approval required for the Municipal Development Plan (MDP), the initial planning document that lays out the vision for Storrs Center, a new Main Street town center to be located in downtown Mansfield. The approval came in a letter from Ronald F. Angelo, Deputy Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development. With this approval in place at the state level and clear support established for the project at the local, regional and federal levels, Storrs Center has achieved a critical milestone in its development process.
Senator Joseph Lieberman and Senator Chris Dodd and Congressman Rob Simmons have been particularly supportive of the public-private project, securing $2.5 million in federal transportation funding last year. In addition, the Mansfield Downtown Partnership, Inc. and the LeylandAlliance team plan to continue working closely with federal and state officials this year to identify
additional sources of public investment.
The next benchmark in the approval process is the creation of a new Special Design District (SDD) for the Town of Mansfield. It is expected that the creation of the SDD and the acquisition of associated permits will take well into the summer of 2006. Once the Storrs Center project area has been re-zoned under the new SDD guidelines, the approvals for actual site plans and individual building designs will commence.
Public involvement and participation continue to be essential to this process. The Mansfield Downtown Partnership and LeylandAlliance will pursue an open and interactive dialogue with the public as they proceed with the next phases of approval and planning for Storrs Center. A series of open houses will continue to be held to update the public regularly on the progress of the project and to get firsthand feedback. Specific time and dates for the open houses will be posted on the Storrs Center web site, www.storrscenter.com. The next open house is Thursday, March 2 at 5:30 PM at the Partnership office (1244 Storrs Road, behind People’s Bank).
In order to assist several operators who wish to continue doing business in the same neighborhood while construction proceeds, the Partnership and the LeylandAlliance team are working on plans for a small retail building in the MDP area that would ideally accommodate many of the existing businesses so that they could relocate and begin operation as commercial pioneers within Storrs Center. This building would be the first new construction in the project area.
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