By Andreas Yilma, Staff Writer
NAUGATUCK — The Board of Mayor and Burgesses last week approved selling a roughly 4-acre lot in the Naugatuck Industrial Park to a construction company.
The approval gives Mayor N. Warren “Pete” Hess the authority to sell a 4.11-acre parcel on Great Hill Road, referred to as lot 3, for $60,000 to Theron Simons, owner of HTS Construction Inc.
The lot that has been vacant since the industrial park was built. It’s appraised at $165,830, but officials have said a hilly and irregular topography has made it difficult to sell.
“That’s why it was never sold. It’s not an easy piece to develop,” Hess said. “The piece of land has never been developed in the past because of the difficult topography.”
Hess said Simons has expertise to excavate the area.
“This will be adding to the grand list,” Hess said. “Theron Simons is a very reputable Naugatuck contractor who is well-suited to develop a nice project for the town.”
The borough reached an agreement last year to sell the lot to Guardians Farm, LLC, a Nigerian Dwarf goat breeder, for the same amount. Hess said they never closed on the deal.
Simons could not be reached for comment.
Tom Hill III, a commercial and industrial real estate broker who is working on Simons’ behalf, said last week they were in the process to get the agreement signed and doing their due diligence to make sure the land is economically feasible.
“We like the industrial park and we see a future of small businesses there,” Hill said.
Hill said the land is complicated and they want got to make sure they do it right.
Naugatuck Economic Development Corp. President Ronald Pugliese said he is enthusiastic about the anticipated development of the land.
“He wants to put up a couple of buildings,” Pugliese said. “We’re pretty excited about the possibilities.”
