Business View Magazine | October 2019

334 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2019 type of transit-oriented development that state and local officials have been promoting in recent years, especially since Berlin owns several parcels of land near the new train station. “About seven years ago, the town’s intent was to put a police station there, but that got turned down by the voters and the council,” Edge recounts. “Then, I recommended to the council that we go out to the private sector to see if we can use somebody else’s money.” And, essentially, that’s what happened. First, the town had to clean up a contaminated brownfield site near the train station, and fortuitously, it received about $2.1 million from the State of Connecticut for its remediation. Then it chose a local developer, the Newport Realty Group LLC, that is now embarking upon an $18 million, mixed- use village project, which will include 76 market rate apartments, with rents of approximately $2.50 per square foot; about 19,000 square feet of commercial and restaurant space; a 12,000-sq.-ft. medical office; about 7,000 square feet of restaurant/retail space; and a stand-alone, 1,600-sq.-ft. building that Edge says he is hoping to get approved for rooftop seating. “Our community, right now, does not have a downtown,” Edge explains. “It is a main drag and commercial district. The problem is it is all car and all transactional. It’s tough to drive relationships if you can’t walk around a downtown. This development will actually create a downtown, will give us some green space, and will allow us to give people ‘work, live, and play,’ which is not an option anywhere else in town. We also have, in this general area, a brewery that just signed a lease to come in and, hopefully, will be up and running by the end of the year. You add that to the two existing restaurants and what I’m hoping will be three or four more, to have that density and energy and walking downtown that we currently lack. The developer has a great plan; we’ve worked hand-in-hand with them; we’ve helped to get the zoning modifications so that they can get the density they need to make the project work. The groundbreaking is expected in October, with the two buildings closest to the road, which is the medical office, and the other building, which is 16