Mansfield, Connecticut

The area in question is called Four Corners in the northwest part of town and the community’s bid to help spur development there came in the form of a bond referendum to support expansion of Mansfield’s sewer system. “Several years ago, the town asked the residents to support bonding for a sewer expansion in that area with the hope that the state would kick in money, and last May, the State Bond Commission decided to bond and fund one third of the project,” Kennedy reports. “It’s a $9 million project; the residents funded $6 million and the state put in another $3 million, so we have a fully-funded sewer expansion. That project is currently underway and should be wrapped up by December of this year.” “Why that is so vital, and what we didn’t know at the time, was that the federal government decided to create Opportunity Zones via the Tax Bill of 2017,” Kennedy continues. “Every governor of each state is allowed to designate Opportunity Zones. A quarter of our town has now been designated and Four Corners lies in that zone. So, it’s the stars aligning in the sense that a project that has long been talked and debated about is coming to fruition in order to spur economic development, at the same time that the Treasury created this tax incentive for people to invest in Opportunity Zones. And the sewer expansion goes right into that area.” But like the man in the commercial says, “But wait, there’s more!” Parts of the University of Connecticut’s land holdings also lie within the new Opportunity Zone and Kennedy says that the town has been working with CERC, the Connecticut Economic Resource Center, to help the University and the town collaborate in deciding how to develop in the zone. “The town has highlighted a couple of places that we’d like to spur development – Four Corners being one of them – and the University has highlighted the two places where they’d like development,” Kennedy notes. Based on that information, Kennedy reports that he has just wrapped up the second of two Opportunity Zone charettes and workshops with regional investors and developers, inviting them to market the town as the only non-urban Opportunity Zone in the state. “We feel there’s