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Zone Change Filed As Part of Outlet Redevelopment

The Westbrook Zoning Commission has received the first application related to the potential redevelopment of the outlets. A public hearing over a proposed regulation town that would allow for buildings with a heigh of 60 feet in the Turnpike Interchange Zone (TIC) will open on Monday, July 22, at 7 p.m. at Town Hall.

Earlier this year, attorney Ed Cassella, representing T Westbrook Center, LLC, the owners of the property the Westbrook Outlets are built on, and two representatives of the Harford-based development company Lexington Partners, LLC, made a presentation to the Westbrook Zoning Commission about potentially turning the outlets into a mix of retail and commercial space including potentially a hotel and amphitheater.

At that presentation, Casella said the first application filed would be to change the text of the zoning regulations so that some of the proposed features would be allowed on the property.

The commission received an application from the developers at its June 24 meeting to increase the allowed building and hotel/motel height in the TIC to 60 feet or five stories. The application also asks for an expanded floor area ratio of 40% to accommodate the increased height. Per the application, “The purpose of the regulation is to allow for the density required to redevelop the property with a decreased building footprint. A small footprint is needed due to the size of the proposed subsurface sewage disposal system.”

At the public hearing, residents can speak in favor, neutrally, or opposed to the application.

If the commission approves the zoning change application, it will be the first step toward a major redevelopment of the outlet property.

According to the presentation made in the winter, the potential development, dubbed Westbrook Commons, would replace the outlets and movie theater with a mix of residential, commercial, townhomes, amenity space, and potentially a hotel and amphitheater built over two phases.

The proposal called for 30 studio apartments, 209 one-bedrooms, 306 two-bedrooms, and 50 three-bedrooms, for a total of 595 units. Patrick Kenny, the vice president of Lexington Partners, said the hotel and amphitheater are not central to the project and may not be included in the final proposal. The developers estimated the project could add 1,300 people to Westbrook. Cassella said the project would feature about 75,000 square feet of retail space, which he said is less than what is currently on the property.

In addition to zoning commission approval, the developers would also need to go before the town’s Inland Wetlands Commission as well as the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

T Westbrook Center purchased the property in 2017 and first talked with the town about this project about a year ago. Since then, developers have been doing their due diligence on the property to see if the redesign was feasible.