Large Housing Complex Pitched For Old College Site In Southington

SOUTHINGTON, CT — A vacant college campus site in Southington, shuttered for several years, appears poised for a resurrection as a large 55-and-over housing project.

But before shovels plunge into soft earth, the applicants for the old campus site have some land-use hurdles to navigate.

New Haven-based PGX Holdings LLC has applied to the Southington Planning and Zoning Commission to seek a zone change that would allow the old Briarwood/Lincoln College campus at 2279 Mount Vernon Road to become a housing development for those aged 55 and over.

In order for such a development to happen, the zoning for the property needs to be adjusted from residential zoning to what is called "ARCHZ" — an acronym for "age restricted cluster housing zone."

If a zone change is granted, the applicants would have to come back to the PZC for a site plan review/approval.

PGX also will have to go before the Southington Zoning Board of Appeals to get a variance that will allow for part of the facility to be used as rented space.

On March 4, representatives of PGX went before Southington's zoning board during a public hearing on the zone change request.

Ultimately, the PZC needed PGX to fine-tune its application and answer some questions before it could render a decision.

As a result, the hearing was continued to Tuesday, March 18's Southington PZC meeting, which will take place at 7 p.m. at the John Weichsel Municipal Center, 196 N. Main St., Southington.

PGX representative Johnny Grunblatt said the impacts on the surrounding environment should be minimal, as no new building construction is planned.

"The project will revitalize the site and positively contribute to the surrounding neighborhood," said Grunblatt to the PZC March 4.

"There will be no environmental impact as the existing buildings and footprint will be used. No new dwellings will be built on the site"

The 32.75-acre campus in Southington, once home to Briarwood College, then the Lincoln College of New England, now sits empty. Lincoln shut down in 2018 and the campus has been vacant since.

In 2023, an area family community nonprofit, "The Misfit Mamas Inc." pitched a plan to purchase the site, which at the time was for sale for about $9.5 million.

This proposal, however, is the only one that has reached the PZC stage.

Severino Bovino, an engineer and vice president of Southington-based Kratzert, Jones & Associates Inc., laid out before the PZC what PGX intends to build.

He said a total of 150 age-restricted housing units are planned, with the units being studio and one-bedroom apartments ranging between 350-1,000 square feet.

Those units would be built into the seven buildings on site, with 6 acres dedicated as open space, Bovino said.

He added that a new pool area would be included and all roads and facilities would be maintained by the property owner on site.

It would be served by 311 parking spaces, according to Bovino.

Members of the public did speak about the zone change request and no one spoke in support of it.

Jonathan Potter of Mountain Pond Road, Southington, said the development doesn't fit the "character" of the area. "What they have proposed does not fit the character of the neighborhood," he said.

Lisa Marshall, also of Mountain Pond Road, opposed the zone change proposal.

She said she feared the impacts of such a development on the area, especially in terms of traffic and population density.

"The Briarwood property is not one to go over the density levels and become apartment buildings. The traffic report is outdated. Briarwood never had 800 to 1,000 people there," she said.

Said Jonathan Lee, also of Mountain Pond Road, "The character of the neighborhood will be changed. There will be strains on local resources."

Ultimately, Southington PZC Chairman Robert Hammersley pushed to have the hearing extended to next week to give the applicant time to fine-tune the zone change application.

For the minutes of the March 4 Southington Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, click on this link.

For all documents related to the Mount Vernon Road zone change proposal, click on this link.