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| QuickTracts Program Makes First Sale |
Plymouth Business Park New Home for DAWG, Inc. | The first sale within Plymouth Business Park also marks the first success of the QuickTracts program, an inventory of pre-qualified, easy-to-develop sites that encourages decision-makers in Connecticut’s towns and cities to select and prepare sites for targeted development appropriate for their communities.
DAWG Inc., currently located in Middlebury, purchased the 2.66-acre parcel for $76,000 and plans to initially construct a 6,000-square-foot facility, which will be expandable to 20,000 square feet to accommodate expected future growth. |
 | | Chris Edge, real estate director at CERC (left), congratulates Steve Krasney of Giglio & Krasney, the real estate broker involved in the sale of this QuickTracts site in Plymouth. |
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“We wanted a site that we could develop quickly,” said Kevin Lacilla, owner of DAWG. “The fact that the Plymouth parcel was a QuickTracts site was a substantial selling point.”
Plymouth Economic Development Director Bill Kuehn was among the first to list properties with the QuickTracts program. “We knew that we could accommodate companies looking to move quickly; the QuickTracts program was clearly another avenue for us to help get the word out,” he said. “I see QuickTracts as another part of the economic development and marketing package Connecticut offers its towns. It’s important that towns work together with the state Department of Economic and Community Development, CL&P, Yankee Gas and other partners like CERC to promote business retention and recruitment in Connecticut.”
Other towns – like Enfield – have also recognized the advantages of QuickTracts. Ray Warren, Enfield’s economic development director, says that QuickTracts is what site selectors and developers are seeking.
“Last fall when several top-tier site search consultants visited the area to review the good and the bad about the state’s overall response to relocations, one of the clear observations they had is that it takes too long – that on a national basis, one [expert] said, they expect all local approvals within 14 days and all state approvals within 30 days. It demonstrates that although we think we’re moving expeditiously, we’re competing with places that move much quicker…so the need for quick movement is really so prominent in my mind,” he said.
That’s why Warren scouted his inventory of available properties and submitted several lots in a manufacturing/industrial area that qualified to be a part of the QuickTracts program. While not all of Enfield’s available properties were right for the QuickTracts designation, Warren thought it was important to use this program to market those that did meet the requirements, including being ready to break ground within 180 days and having existing infrastructure within 400 feet of the site.
“If you put a little asterisk and say it’s QuickTracts-certified, that’s an attention getter and it means something and it’s important,” said Warren.
QuickTracts can be accessed through its Web site, www.QuickTracts.com, and through the CERC SiteFinder™ database at www.CTSiteFinder.com. Sponsored by the Connecticut Light and Power Company and The United Illuminating Company, QuickTracts is marketed by CERC, a statewide economic development company.
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