GROTON — Weeks after move-ins began for a major new apartment complex at Triton Square, Groton approved another large development along the Gold Star Highway: Columbia Crossing, which will have nearly 400 units in five buildings at market-rate rents.
On Wednesday, the Groton Planning & Zoning Commission signed off on Orr Partners’ construction of Columbia Crossing, with plans for five identically sized buildings totaling 79 apartments each on five floors, for 395 units in total.
The property is being built on four wooded parcels totaling 18 acres, on an elevation above Gold Star Highway that will require removal of bedrock and use of fill to level the property for construction. An engineering analysis contemplates the use of controlled blasting as part of the process.
The development name evokes the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines being built at the General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyard in Groton over the coming decades.
Orr Partners took on the project last year, with previous developers having considered building there at the behest of the town, but not pushing ahead. The company plans to break ground later this year.
“This is a project that has been a long-term, economic-development priority for the Town of Groton — literally for a decade,” Bill Sweeney, an attorney with TCORS in Norwich representing Orr Partners told members of the Groton Planning & Zoning Commission Wednesday. “There have been numerous starts and there have been stops. There have been challenges and frustrations. There have been developer partners that have come and gone, but I think this project is really a shining example of perseverance.”
Orr Partners was project manager for Electric Boat’s new “shed” housing Columbia submarine construction, and was involved with Triton Square in the role of owner’s representation services. The firm is based in Reston, Virginia, and has had a Groton office for a number of years to coordinate building projects for Electric Boat.
Under a design by Milford-based Sullivan Architectural Group and the West Hartford office of engineering firm Bohler, the apartment buildings and a separate clubhouse are positioned in a manner that from above resembles the elongated outline of a submarine, surrounded by leafy walking trails and green spaces and adjacent to Avalonia Land Trust trails.
The clubhouse grounds will include an outdoor swimming pool and pickleball courts. Ground-level apartments have patios and those on upper levels balconies.
A portion of the property, owned by the town of Groton, had been envisioned once for a Walmart store that did not obtain zoning approval.
See the original article on the Milford Mirror.
