With Newington getting a rare opportunity to shape the future of its town center, residents say they want to encourage more restaurants, stores and housing, but without substantially worsening traffic.
They’ll get an opportunity to suggest ways the town can do that at a March 8 design meeting. Consultants are preparing for a deep-dive conference with local homeowners, tenants and merchants on just what the core of the village should look like in the future — and how the town can help make that happen.
At public workshops and through an online survey late last year, consultants working with town planners heard residents are happy with a lot of the town center’s features, including the extensive parking and the easy walkability.
“Everyone loves all the restaurant options in the town center but would love to see even more of them,” Kimberly Baptiste, a senior planner with New Jersey-based Colliers Engineering & Design, told a public information meeting in December.
“We’ve certainly heard about what are perceived as some retail gaps. Folks would like to see more retail; in particular we’ve heard quite a few times about the loss of the grocery store and the desire to have more food options in the town center,” Baptiste said.
What prompted the town center planning this year is Hartford HealthCare’s decision to sell its roughly 50-acre property bordering the town center, a move that could dramatically change the look of the whole area.
Most of the land is wooded, with a smaller section housing the boarded-up remnants of the former Newington Children’s Hospital that closed nearly 30 years ago. The tract has been fenced off and largely ignored, but a sale could mean a wide range of development proposals.
“The feedback we’ve gotten to date is folks think residential would be a good future use for the Hartford Health site,” Baptiste said. “But at the same time, (they) just want to be careful and think about the traffic impacts of additional development.”
As residents think about what they’d like in the town center in the future, planners want to establish some starting points. Compared to the Connecticut average, Newington is growing more slowly, and has a higher concentration of seniors and fewer children, Colliers reported.
In addition, the 73% rate of home ownership in Newington is significantly higher than in the state or the Greater Hartford region. At the same time, 19% of Newington’s housing is rental, compared to 42% statewide and 30% in Greater Hartford. Part of that may be a shortage of apartments in recent decades, despite a surge last year.
“Over the last 10 years, Newington delivered 420 (new) units, all of them in 2024 in two projects,” Colliers reported. “Nothing was built between 2000 and 2023, then the multifamily base grew by 32% in a single year.”
As of 2023, Connecticut listed Newington as having just under 8.6% of its housing as affordable, compared to the statewide target of 10%. Municipal officials have not yet said how that would impact future large-scale residential development on the Hartford HealthCare property, but in general suburbs with less than 10% affordable housing have been reluctant to approve very large, purely market-rate apartment complexes that would put them even further behind.
Camoin Associates is doing a market analysis for the town to assess the practicality of a range of development possibilities.
“They are looking at housing opportunities, retail opportunities, hospitality, office, industrial,” according to Baptiste.
Ultimately, the planning workshops and discussions this year are intended to guide zoning modifications that can encourage particular types of development in the town center. Town Planner Paul Dickson said in December that Newington can benefit by deciding in advance what it wants on the undeveloped land because that will signal to developers what kinds of proposals stand the best chance of acceptance.
“You have the framework in place, what the community desires,” Dickson said. “So when they come in, the community has spoken. This is taking away some of the risk from the developer.”
The March 8 session is scheduled for 9 a.m. to noon at town hall.
Originally Published: February 24, 2025 at 5:50 AM EST