Demolition grows near for hulking, abandoned Ames headquarters in Rocky Hill – Hartford Courant

With excavators and a bulldozer standing by, the developer planning apartments at the long-abandoned Ames headquarters in Rocky Hill has begun environmental remediation after buying the property for $2.3 million.

Were all eager for this. Theyre telling us they can do demolition in four months after remediation is done, and then start construction in the spring of 23, Mayor Lisa Marotta said Friday.

Rocky Hill struggled for years to find a major retailer or office management company interested in reusing the 250,000-square-foot building after Ames went out of business in 2002.

But the building and its 12 acres just deteriorated over the years; the massive parking lot is buckled and riddled with weeds, the office complex itself is marred by graffiti. Several years ago, anonymous YouTubers filmed inside and showed moldy walls, exposed wires, collapsing drop ceilings and decades-old work manuals scattered across floors.

The former Ames headquarters. Photograph by Mark Mirko | mmirko@courant.com (Mark Mirko/The Hartford Courant)

A lot of people in Rocky Hill have memories from here so many people worked at Ames, said Marotta, who spent a summer after high school as a data entry clerk in a third-floor office.

There were hundreds of people here, and they frequented the businesses and restaurants. They enjoy the stories of the past, but theyre really happy to see something new coming, Marotta said Friday in a tour of the site.

At its height, Ames had more than 55,000 employees. Its Rocky Hill headquarters housed as many as 1,000 merchandisers, accountants, logistics managers and others.

Despite a devastating 1991 bankruptcy, Ames still had 327 stores and more than 21,000 employees in 2002 when it announced it was going out of business. It was the last of the once-powerful New England discount department store chains; Caldor and Bradlees had already shut down.

The headquarters it left behind had once been a source of civic pride, but became a high-profile center of blight in the following years.

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Hamden-based Belfonti Companies LLC this month paid $2.3 million for the property, and plans to build 213 apartments one of the largest new residential projects in central Connecticut.

Rocky Hill wants the new residential complex to be the springboard for a larger-scale redevelopment that will stretch to the Connecticut River. The town has a history of being car-centric, and the vision for this section is heavy on wide sidewalks and bike paths to generate more of a community center feel.

The Main Street frontage will have a restaurant and commercial development, and Marotta sees it as part of a new village green and town center for Rocky Hill. The town expects to close the very end of Dividend Road so it can expand the small, triangular green there.

Gov. Ned Lamonts administration last year put $500,000 toward the environmental cleanup of the 1965 building and surrounding property. Marotta said the public-private partnership nature of the new development was key to starting progress.

Belfonti plans 93 one-bedroom apartments and 120 two-bedroom units, all at market rate except for 10% that will be reserved as affordable housing.

The companys plans will include about 11,000 square feet of commercial office space and 10,000 square feet of retail or restaurant space. There will also be a pocket park on the property.

Marotta said the town is looking to extend a new streetscape with sidewalks down Glastonbury Avenue, creating pedestrian access to the waterfront. The Ames property is about a 2-minute drive from the dock for the Glastonbury ferry, and the new pedestrian amenities will go a long way toward creating a town center thats linked to the waterfront, she said.

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Demolition grows near for hulking, abandoned Ames headquarters in Rocky Hill - Hartford Courant