With super-regional malls drawing from an orbit of up to 25 miles, as determined by the International Council of Shopping Centers, Stamford Town Center has enjoyed a market cocoon of sorts in lower Fairfield County since its 1982 opening as a major new urban mall.
In two years’ time, however, that bubble is set to burst with the introduction of a major upscale competitor 10 miles distant in Norwalk, with at least one person wary of what that will mean for Stamford Town Center. As it happens, he’s the one who calls the shots at the mall’s co-owner Taubman Centers (NYSE: TCO). In a candid response last month to an analyst query, Taubman Centers CEO Robert Taubman indicated he is under no illusions about the competitive pressures Stamford Town Center faces as General Growth Properties (NYSE: GGP) readies to break ground later this year on The SoNo Collection, situated in South Norwalk just off Interstate 95 and Route 7, with a prospective opening date of 2018.
“There is no question if GGP builds … it will put pressure on Stamford,” Taubman said in a May conference call. “Stamford has been more of a community asset, more local within the city, for some time … but obviously it will be better if Norwalk didn’t move forward.”
With Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s lined up as anchor tenants, General Growth Properties’ CEO has indicated The SoNo Collection will move ahead with a lower level of lease commitments than it would typically look to line up in advance of construction, on confidence that if GGP builds it, stores will come.
“It’s going to be focused upon our leasing-up abilities — and the leasing is going quite well,” said General Growth Properties CEO Sandeep Mathrani, in a May conference call. “Based upon getting final approvals and getting our leasing in place, it should be an end-of-the-year 2016 groundbreaking, or very early 2017 … for a 2018 opening.”
Malls nationally and locally have been faring well on the leasing front, with Danbury Fair mall just Friday marking the opening of the European department store chain Primark among several new stores to arrive in the past year.
General Growth Properties publishes data on its average lease rates for replacement tenants in its spaces. For more than 2.5 million square feet of leases commencing this year, General Growth Properties is generating an average lease rate of $66.37 in the initial year, up 12 percent from the expiring lease rate of the prior contract. That spread balloons to 17 percent for a far smaller set of leases scheduled to take effect in 2017. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Ultimate OffRoad trucking competition continues to grow in Meriden
MERIDEN — Thousands of local and regional off-road trucking fans flocked to Meriden-Markham Airport on Sunday for the annual Ultimate Offroad show.
“We have rock crawlers, we have mega trucks, which are the ones with the agricultural tires, we have other lifted mud trucks,” said John Cerejo, the founder of the competition. “We have two different mud pits.”
After working for a charity that ran trucking competitions, Cerejo decided to start his own.
“It has always been my passion, I’ve always been into the off-road scene, whether it’s four-wheeling or going to shows and competing. I also compete in events all over New England,” he added. “It started out as a smaller show, just 20 to 30 trucks and now we’re averaging about 200 trucks ... People come down here from New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, all over New England.”
Bill Kupec, a Wallingford resident, has been attending the truck competition for a few years with his sons, Kyle and Ethan.
“It has gotten a lot bigger, better and more organized,” Kupec said.
“There’s a lot more trucks, a different variety of the trucks coming,” Kyle added.
“We’re car guys but we will take the four-wheel drive, too,” Bill Kupec said.
The approximately 200 trucks ran through a handful of different tracks that Cerejo created, with the help of Local 478 Engineering School and the La Rosa Construction Co.
Though this event is not part of the Throttle King Series, many of the competitors made the trip to Meriden.
“A lot of them are involved in Throttle King, which is a mixture of different events throughout New England and they accumulate points,” Cerejo said. “It’s nice to see some of the bigger guys coming here today, nice to get their support and have them come out and put on a good show for us.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
NPU has submitted plans to the city planning office for a special permit – required for any water tank above 50,000 gallons – to replace the aging tank with one that NPU officials say will allow for both better water quality and pressure. The Commission on the City Plan will hold a public hearing on the application at 7 p.m. on June 21.
The existing ground-based steel tank at 19 Park Center Road measures 140 feet in diameter and 52 feet high. The new 2.5-million gallon concrete tank would be built on the same foundation with “minimal earthwork and grading,” project engineering firm Dewberry Engineers of Boston wrote in the application.
NPU officials said although the new tank would be 35 feet taller than the one to be removed, it would not be visible above the tree line or from any neighboring homes.
NPU Assistant General Manager Chris LaRose said the main reason for replacing the tank is improved water quality. Water in a smaller and taller tank would be recirculated through the system quicker with less time to become stagnant. The modernized NPU water storage system now has several large sources, including a new tank near the Deep River reservoir in Lebanon, allowing for more reliability of large volumes of water if needed for fire suppression or to replace systems pulled off line for some reason.
“The existing tank was designed for maximum storage for fire protection and not for circulation,” LaRose said. “So it's much too large.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Road repairs begin Monday in Southbury
SOUTHBURY — Public works crews will begin crack and chip sealing projects on town roads this Monday. On Friday, First Selectman Jeffrey A. Manville released a list of 17 roads due for treatment.
"Most communities use this process in an effort to extend the life of their roads," he said of the alternatives to paving. Southbury formed a Road Study Committee and hired the consultant iWorQ to come up with a maintenance plan for its road system. The goal is to increase the average remaining service life of Southbury's roads to 12 years. Then Manville said the roads can be on more of a maintenance schedule, rather than having more reconstruction projects.
The average life for the town's roads has been brought up from 9.9 to 10.7 years. "The town's on its way toward its goal," Manville said of getting to 12 years. As the town performs major projects on its worst roads, the first selectman said the less expensive crack and chip sealing treatments prevents deterioration of roads that are in better shape.
"If we let roads go beyond a certain point, they have to be reclaimed, which is an expensive process," he said.
Milling and paving is when a top layer of asphalt is milled away and a new layer of pavement is applied. But Manville said reclamation is when the road is removed all the way down to the dirt and redone, and that it is 50 percent more expensive. The Road Study Committee decided which roads are a priority. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE