Inland Wetlands OKs application for industrial development

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By Elio Gugliotti, Editor

An architectural rendering of the proposed ‘Naugatuck Industrial Commons’ development. –CONTRIBUTED

NAUGATUCK — The Inland Wetlands Commission on July 14 approved an application submitted by the borough for an industrial development, dubbed “Naugatuck Industrial Commons,” on mostly vacant land off Elm Street between the Naugatuck River and Cherry Street Extension.

The project includes a 322,100-square-foot industrial or warehouse building, two pads for future industrial buildings planned to be about 162,000 square feet and 65,000 square feet, respectively, and associated parking. The project also calls for a container yard between the train tracks on the site and river, and a fuel cell pad.

The development would be built on roughly 86 acres of land that used to be home to the former Uniroyal Chemical Company. The Lanxess Corporation, which is a successor to Uniroyal, owns the land and has an agreement to sell it to the borough.

The plan also includes improvements near two buildings owned by Lanxess on the site and a new private road between the buildings.

About 2,480 square feet of “low-value” wetlands will be filled in to make way for a road to allow better vehicular circulation on the site, necessitating approval from the Inland Wetlands Commission.

Plans for the development will have to go before the Zoning Commission and Planning Commission before the project moves forward.

The hope is the development turns into the proposed “Port of Naugatuck,” a proposed inland port and intermodal transportation hub that would use the freight rail line that runs to the site to transport goods to and from trucks and trains for warehousing and distribution. If the port project doesn’t move ahead, the development will be an industrial park.