NEW BRITAIN, CT – The former steel manufacturing building in the New Britain Business Park has not seen a work crew in decades. After steelmaking ended, the site also served as a storage building before spending at least the past 20 years as a decaying and contaminated brownfield site.
But that could change by next year, according to a coalition of state and city officials and private business representatives. At a media briefing Tuesday, Stuart Lichter, president of the Industrial Realty Group, LLC, which owns the property, said he was “really, really confident” that once the 123,000-square-foot building had been remediated, it could be returned to active commercial use.
“The way it works in the industrial world, companies are loath to commit – especially smaller companies – too far in advance of occupancy,” he said.
Lichter’s company owns five buildings totaling about 480,000 square feet in the business park, he said. About a dozen companies currently operate out of the properties, he said.
Officials at the briefing announced a $2 million state grant to clean up the property and dispose of the industrial waste still littering the site. That state aid – a significant portion of the estimated $3.5 million total cleanup cost – will mean that IRG can return the building to active use at a price that makes sense for renters, Lichter said.
Jack Benjamin, New Britain’s director of planning and development, said there was a significant demand for rehabilitated industrial sites.
“So we’re especially excited that a project like this is going to reuse an industrial property for its original intent, and to create products and jobs on the site,” he said.
Benjamin cited New Britain’s nickname – “Hardware City” – and said there were still thousands of residents proudly working in the manufacturing industry. He said redeveloping and reimagining brownfields would allow the city to create more jobs and spur continued economic growth.
Gov. Ned Lamont said the New Britain project was one of many such brownfield reclamations in the state, which have resulted in over 2,000 acres of property being remediated and returned to active use.
Gov. Ned Lamont speaks about brownfields cleanup in New Britain Business Park on July 29, 2025. Credit: Donald Eng / CTNewsJunkie
“It takes foresight to be able to see what the brownfields work can do,” he said. “It starts with brownfield remediation. And sometimes we can make it into housing. Sometimes commercial. And sometimes we can make it into facilities that are more suited to what this space is all about.”
Lichter said he expected the cleanup to be complete by early 2026 and added that his company has several other potential projects in the complex.
“We’re just doing them one by one, but there are a couple of projects,” he said.
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