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01/08/2020 08:30 AMAn international youth soccer organization may boost its Connecticut presence if negotiations for the former Unilever property off Route 145 are successful.
Ed Greene, the director of coaching for the shoreline division of the Connecticut Rush, a developmental soccer club with three locations in Connecticut, including one in Guilford, confirmed to the Harbor News that the Rush has been approached about the property. Greene said the club is still talking with the site owners, Old Post Road Realty (OPRR) though nothing is close to imminent.
Greene noted that Rush’s shoreline division draws participants from New Haven to Stonington, with a heavy concentration in the Branford to Old Lyme area. The division serves players aged 8 to 18.
“Clinton really would be an ideal location for us,” Greene said.
According to Greene, while the potential of the site is exciting to the Rush, the reality is that the asking price to outright purchase the property may be too steep for the team. Greene said that the Rush had participated in market studies with the property owners to determine the feasibility of such a project working in this area.
The property generated substantial public interest in 2018 and the early portion of 2019. A February 2019 application from OPRR to amend the zoning regulations to allow for the possible construction of an indoor recreation complex in the I-2 zone where the property is located was approved by the Planning & Zoning Commission (PZC).
A previous proposal would have turned the property into a construction and demolition waste recycling plant. After meeting heavy and vocal opposition from the townspeople the developers instead decided to work with the town and turn a new leaf toward a recreational use.
Clinton Economic Development Commission Chairman John Allen said that the appeal of this use was that the soccer fields could be more easily maintained than other uses such as a hockey rink, and due to the size of the property there could be several fields at the site.
Requests for comment from the property owners were not returned. The talks are still in negotiations only, according to Allen, and so there are no formal plans for the property on file.
This is not the only proposal to add a recreation complex in Clinton. The new owner of the former Unilever headquarters on John Street was granted permission by the PZC to put indoor turf on a portion of that property. In 2013, the town also disbursed a $200,000 grant to Shoreline Ice, LLC, to conduct a feasibility study to build an ice rink at the former dump site on Old Nod Road; that effort failed.
Allen said he can see substantial benefits coming to the town from a sports complex.
“This is a thing that really brings people to town. Anybody knows if you go to these tournaments, you’re there all day,” Allen said.