Contractors are in the late stages of building the biggest mixed-use development in the town’s history, which is bringing about 140,000 square feet of new retail, 300 luxury apartments and 140 upscale townhouses to the I-691 and I-84 area.
Stonebridge Crossing is transforming a little more than 100 acres of former farmland, fields and trees in Cheshire into one of Greater Waterbury’s biggest combination commercial and retail developments in decades.
Most of the heavy construction is done for The Shops at Stone Bridge, a shopping center anchored by Whole Foods and expected to include a Barnes & Noble store, T.J. Maxx, Shake Shack and others. Florida-based Regency Centers, a major national retail developer, is heading that project.
Several of the apartment buildings at the Riverpointe apartment complex are completed, the first wave of tenants has begun moving in, and additional units are leasing from $2,100 for studios to as high as $3,600 for three-bedroom units. Fairfield-based Eastpointe LLC is the developer.
And as of midweek, 108 of the townhouses and carriage homes at the Reserve at Stonebridge Crossing have been sold.
“We’re crushing it. We’ll probably be sold out by the end of this year or early in the first quarter of next year,” said Matthew Gilchrist, president of EG Home, which is building the townhouses that start at $494,000 and the carriage homes that begin at $669,000.
Still to come is a four-story, 117-room Homewood Suites that’s planned on about 4 acres of the site.
At a time when the nation’s bricks-and-mortar retail segment is largely stagnant or contracting, the prospect of an all-new shopping plaza might seem unlikely.
But Assistant Town Manager Andrew Martelli noted that the plaza and its components are significantly smaller than the big box stores and malls that were popular decades ago.
“The retail market was underserved here; Cheshire hasn’t built a retail shopping area since the 1970s. And the biggest building here is going to be 40,000 square feet. Big boxes aren’t the wave of the future,” he said Thursday. “Even the Barnes & Noble here will be 18,000.”
Whole Foods has a regional distribution center in Cheshire, and its new retail outlet will be its only store between Waterbury and Milford, Martelli said.
Decades ago, Cheshire and Southington were trying to build the Apple Valley Mall around the location of Stone Bridge Crossing. That deal never came together, and was abandoned after Waterbury put up its Brass Mill Center. As recently as 10 years ago, the Tanger chain was eying Cheshire for an outlet store center of more than 500,000 square feet, but scrapped that plan in favor of building at Foxwoods.
Some longtime Cheshire residents are pleased with how it all turned out, since malls and numerous outlet centers have been suffering financially. The Stonebridge Crossing project is a bit closer in nature to The Shops at Evergreen Walk, an upscale retail center in South Windsor where developers have been adding apartments within walking distance.
Gilchrist said the Stonebridge Crossing model’s commercial element offers another feature to residential buyers.
“Cheshire is a desirable town and it’s an easy commute with future access to great retail,” he said.
The company’s marketing pitch emphasizes that, saying “A convenient location offers endless restaurants nearby, myriad shopping options and easy commuting routes.”
Developers are setting aside some acreage as open space, and will be putting in community walking paths.
Gilchrist said most townhouses there sell for under $600,000, while the carriage homes go for $775,000 to $850,000. Solar panels installed in roofs will help constrain the homeower association fees, he said. Buyers range from empty-nesters to young professionals, according to the company.
“The secret for us is we’re production builders You do well what you do often; we have extremely well thought-out homes and we build them over and over agin,” he said. “But we never build the same house twice: Buyers choose their cabinets, their floors, their doorknobs.”