A Utah developer is seeking approval to bring 420,000 cubic yards of fill to a long-abandoned Berlin brickyard as part of a plan to redevelop the 57-acre property. The project, slated for 303 New Britain Road, would create a pad site for two commercial buildings totaling 44,000 square feet on about 16.7 acres, along with 90 parking spaces, stormwater basins and a new permanent railroad crossing. Berlin Industrial Redevelopment LLC, an affiliate of Farr West, Utah-based Industrial Development Advantage LLC, is seeking site plan approval for the project, which would be located on a 56.9-acre property owned by Connecticut Sand & Stone Corp. Braxton Buckway, the company’s chief financial officer, is listed as the applicant. The property has been vacant since the early 1980s. From about 1900 into the 1960s, it operated as the Donnelly Brick Co., which mined clay to depths exceeding 30 feet. The resulting pits were filled during the 1970s, including with material generated during construction of Route 9, but the fill was never engineered or compacted. That uncontrolled fill left the site geotechnically unstable and environmentally contaminated. The developer says the site cannot be redeveloped without massive amounts of fill to stabilize the ground and raise the grade. Berlin Industrial Redevelopment, or BIR, proposes using up to 420,000 cubic yards of fill to do that.
Developer seeks approval for 420,000 cubic yards of fill to redevelop former Berlin brickyard
