Businesses Want Utilities Extended Up Flanders Road

Tim Tylaska stays in Groton because he grew up in Old Mystic and his business is here.

But it hasn't been easy.

“I have thought about moving somewhere else, and other towns seem to roll over backward to encourage development,” Tylaska said. “I believe that Groton itself would like to have more tax base, but it just seems as though nothing ever really gets done.”

Tylaska owns Mystic Business Park, LLC, an industrial park on Flanders Road which houses about 30 businesses, some of which would like to expand. They cannot; there are no public utilities.

Tylaska was among about a half dozen people who urged the Groton Town Council this week to make fixing this a priority.

“I don’t expect that it will ever be seen in my business lifetime,” said Dave Cote, a business owner who also spoke to the council. “But for our kids and for the sake of our town, I hope that something starts to develop here.”

Peter Pappas, chairman of the Groton Economic Development Commission, said it’s not enough to color-code a map and say industry is allowed. Businesses need utilities, he said.

“Without investment, there is no recovery from this recession,” he said. “There is no job growth.”

An Industrial Park But No Public Water

Cote said Tylaska has put up with more than he would.

Tylaska, a mechanical engineer, bought four acres in 2001 to start an industrial park, then built three buildings and filled them.

Then he ran out of room.

So he bought five more acres.  But there was a problem: no public water. He had 19 units, and the rule is that if you have 20, you must connect to a public water supply or become one yourself.

The nearest water stopped about a mile away. Tylaska and other business owners raised the issue with town officials and it was debated and studied. But for various reasons, nothing concrete was ever done, he said.

“It came to the point where I had no choice to become a public water supply,” Tylaska said. He connected the two wells on his property, constructed a building to store tanks and testing materials, filed paperwork with the State Department of Health, and made arrangements to test for hundreds of chemicals every three months.

Utilities A Priority Five Years Ago

The question of extending utilities to the Flanders Road area has been around for years. 

In 2006, Groton's Strategic Economic Development Plan ranked the project first on its list of 13 economic priorities.

Later that year, the Town Council organized a committee to study the best routes for bringing water and sewer to the area and potential ways to pay for it. The Flanders Road Utilities Extension Committee issued a report in February, 2008, and outlined a recommended project that could be done all at once or in phases.

The cost of the full route in 2008 was $14 million. The report also split the work into smaller increments of $2 million, $4.6 million or $7.2 million, to give the town that option. When completed, the extension would reach 164 acres of buildable land, 82 of which are zoned for industrial use.

Funding and The Voters

Michael Murphy, Groton's director of planning and development, said the study outlined choices.

He said private funding for the project is not realistically available; the council would likely have to ask for public money and seek approval at referendum, Murphy said.

 “Yes, you can do it in segments,” he said. “Then politically, what do you go out for?”

Groton taxpayers earlier this month defeated a $133 million bond referendum to pay for new school construction, but passed a $6.37 million bond ordinance to rebuild Thames Street. The street reconstruction project was voted down earlier, when it was more expensive.

Groton has budgeted $100,000 to spend on engineering studies to refine the recommended utility routes. That study has not been started yet.

It will likely take about a year, once it's started, Murphy said.

"We Will Outgrow Our Space"

In the meantime, business owners continue to wrestle with their company's demands.

Robert Wood, president of AirWell H20, Inc., said in a May 17 letter to the council that his business needs space. He returned to Southeastern Connecticut from California to open in Groton.

“We will outgrow our initial space of just under 5,000 square feet within six months of opening,” he said. The company will then face a choice: build its own facility or leave town, he said.

Tylaska said he's done as much as he can.

“I have no more building I can do, ” he told the council. “So this is the end. There will be no more jobs created in my industrial park. Unless the water and sewer is brought up, the rest of the land will just stay as it is.”