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[quote] Plainfield hopes to lure desirable project

By FRANCESCA KEFALAS
Norwich Bulletin


PLAINFIELD -- A mall with a mix of department stores and smaller boutiques.

A health complex with pool, complete work facilities and medical offices.


An indoor athletic complex.

First Selectman Kevin Cunningham can see any of those developments coming to town. And he is going to the people who develop them to sell Plainfield, he said.

Eight developers have come to him interested in Plainfield, specifically in the land near Exit 87 off Interstate 395.

Utopia Chief Financial Officer Joseph Gentile voiced his interest in the Plainfield Greyhound Park and surrounding land in November.

Gentile said recently he is considering a development at the site of the closed Plainfield dog track or nearby.

"Yes, I'm very interested in doing something in Plainfield -- exactly what is yet to be determined," he said, after meeting with Norwich officials to discuss potential in the city.

"I'm attracted to the town in itself and I'm very fond of the first selectman and the economic development leader," he added.

Cunningham said he would like to work with Karen Keelan, executive vice president of Connecticut Yankee Greyhound Racing, to find a use for the land. The park ended all racing events May 31.

The Shoppes at Blackstone Valley in Millbury, Mass., is a development Cunningham points to as the kind of project that would be good for Plainfield.

Developed by W.S Development at S. R Weiner and Associates, the owners and developers of Lisbon Landing and more than 70 other properties in New England, The Shoppes at Blackstone Valley is an 820,000-square-foot outdoor shopping mall, mixing stores such as Kohls, Target and Barnes and Noble with smaller retail stores, restaurants and a Cinema De Luxe.

Bob Frazier, vice president of development at S.R. Weiner, said The Shoppes at Blackstone Valley was designed to be pedestrian and family friendly.

"It's a lifestyle component," Frazier said.

There are more than 43 stores in the mall and it attracts more than 100,000 cars a day.

John Filchak, executive director of Northeast Council of Governments, said Cunningham has been asked to look into attracting a health-care facility to the region that would combine medical and fitness facilities.

"We're not against any developer," Cunningham said. "But we want to see their plans. We want them to go through the proper channels."