With a checkered shirt, denims and an easy hello, Peter Doering, a partner in Two Roads Brewing Co. in Stratford, looks like he answered the call from Hollywood central casting for a craft brewer.
There is, however, no make-believe involved in Two Roads”™ success, now quantifiable at 11,000 cases per day after opening December 2012. Rather, the brewery is part of Stratford”™s game-changing push to bring 32 new businesses to town even as it, among other things, remakes the half-mile around the train depot as a fresh-minted zoning district and picks up a business-friendly exit off Interstate 95.
Doering walked recently through Two Roads”™ 100,000-square-foot converted factory space at 1700 Stratford Ave. The company uses 65,000 square feet and leases out another 35,000 square feet to other enterprises. Beginning in the retail bar/restaurant and through security-controlled glass doors to the brewing and bottling facility, Doering ticked off the daily numbers: 20,000 gallons or 800 barrels. “That”™s 11,000 cases,” he said.
“The town of Stratford has been great,” he said. “They supported us when all we had was a business plan.”
- Peter Doering, principal, Two Roads Brewing Co.
Several hours earlier, Stratford”™s Director of Economic Development, Karen Keiser, and the town”™s Supervisor for Economic Development, Amy Knorr, cited Two Roads as an example of Stratford”™s efforts to use what is useable to greater effect ”” as with the former U.S. Baird industrial machine plant that became home to Two Roads ”” or to demolish what is unsalvageable, as with the multistory Mercer Coal Towers coming asunder in recent weeks on Stratford Avenue.
The 1965-built Center School on 3.6 acres at 1000 E. Broadway is also slated for replacement, a $1.2 million job funded by the state Department of Economic and Community Development”™s brownfield fund. The next phase for the school, which is within the town”™s transit-oriented district, is to bid it out for demolition. A 1920s-contructed building on the property will be renovated.
Citing the school as an “underutilized property,” Knorr said it and others like it are in the town”™s crosshairs.
“When the lot is cleared, we”™ll look for a developer,” she said. “Ideally, it will incorporate retail and restaurants, homes, including apartments or condos and parking.”
Knorr said developers would be offered a break on traditional parking-to-occupancy equations. “We want to make Stratford a high-density, walkable downtown,” she said. She noted she and Kaiser have investigated similar planning/development efforts in Meriden, Storrs and West Hartford.
“This type of project helps downtown,” Knorr said. “It helps retail. It draws people downtown, off the highways and onto mass transit. For downtowns, this is the way to go. It helps with the economics and it helps with the taxes. It”™s going to improve our whole downtown.
The town”™s Transit-Oriented District Overlay Zone was added to Stratford”™s zoning regulations in March with the unanimous approval of the Town Council and of the Planning and Zoning commissions.
Knorr and Kaiser said additionally the state Office of Policy and Management recently awarded the town a $200,000 transit-oriented development planning grant for a complete street improvement plan, “which will allow the town to further develop transportation choices within the roughly one-half mile around the Stratford Train Station.” Seven proposals have so far been received for the work. The Greater Bridgeport Regional Council ”” a cooperative partnership between Stratford, Bridgeport, Easton, Fairfield, Monroe and Trumbull that provides best-practices help with transportation and land-use planning, brownfields and economic development services ”” and the town are vetting the applications.
“TOD is really important to us,” Kaiser said. “The whole idea of TOD ”” higher density, commuting, more walkability ”” can be set up in so many different ways. There are public-private partnerships. Land can be leased or it can be purchased.” She and Knorr said the grant money would produce the workable options with which to begin.
Those options span building materials, tree types and an awareness of town history.
Several big-project items on Stratford”™s development docket include the recent completion of a $20 million federal and state re-alignment of nearly a half-mile of Main Street to accommodate the construction of a runway safety area at the east end of runway 6-24 at Sikorsky Airport. All of the utilities in the area are underground due to the proximity of the runways.
AÂ state DECD grant of $2.85 million is paying to demolish and remediate of the former Contract Plating site at 540 Longbrook Ave., which includes 10 acres within the TOD zone. The work has begun.
Though not in the transit district, the Mercer Coal Tower demolition also has begun, funded by a $200,000 federal EPA grant. Another $150,000 federal Community Development Block Grant will help. The towers will be completely removed this month.
The town also looks to see built a full Exit 33 interchange off Interstate 95. There is currently only a northbound exit there. The town will soon schedule public hearings on the effort, said to cost $24 million, with construction, if approved, slated to begin some time in 2017.
Kaiser said state DECD grants alone account for $3.32 million across three years. She said 19 companies received grants or loans and with those loans created 87 jobs and retained 410 jobs in town. She called Stratford “the poster child” for getting grants and for using them to spur development.
“There has been a lot of progress,” Knorr said. “We”™re located in a great place. And we”™re a little more affordable for businesses to operate here than in southern Fairfield County.”
“Stratford is becoming known as business friendly,” Kaiser said. “Amy and I pull everything together for an initial meeting. There”™s no running from department to department. We bring together planning and zoning, building and engineering, the tax assessor and the legal team. I”™d say, hypothetically, some towns can get a project done in six months. We normally get it done in a couple of months.”
