Norwich — The City Council on Monday authorized the city to apply for a $250,000 state grant to fund a feasibility study of a developer’s plan to transform the former Chestnut Street Mill into as many as 170 workforce housing units. Councilors voted unanimously to authorize the city and Norwich Community Development Corp. to apply for the grant. During the meeting, NCDC President Kevin Brown explained that the owner of the downtown mill property and the developer are interested in studying the path to redeveloping the building and bringing it “back to life.” The 125-year-old mill, which has sat abandoned for around two decades, has been the subject of multiple blight violations, including for falling bricks. “There is a possibility that finally, this can be transformed,” Mayor Swarnjit Singh said Monday. The building, which opened in 1901, was originally home to gun manufacturer Hopkins & Allen, which supplied firearms to the British and Belgian governments during World War I. Most recently it was home to Norwich Textiles, which colored synthetic fabric for use in swimsuits and lingerie. It was purchased by Franklin St. LLC, based in New York, in 2006. Property owner Maurice Moezinia, who is in the textile business, said Tuesday he originally acquired the building in hopes of keeping textile manufacturing there alive. Moezinia mentioned that through the years it wasn’t easy to get things done with the building. Moezinia said that changed when Singh called him, gave him his cellphone number and made him feel he could trust the mayor. “We’ve been trying to do something for many years, but it was always hitting a brick wall, or the numbers never made sense,” Moezinia said. “And the atmosphere wasn’t proper for development with this property,” he said, adding that Singh “was basically able to put all the puzzle pieces together to help this project work.”
City Council authorizes Norwich to seek grant to study massive Chestnut Street Mill housing project
