$80M Pawcatuck redevelopment project entering next phase
Stonington — Just 18 months after the commission approved the nearly $80-million, 232-unit residential, retail, professional and medical office space redevelopment of the former Hoyt’s/Regal Cinema property in Pawcatuck, READCO of Old Lyme has signaled it is ready to seek approval for a new phase of construction. With a recent application to the Planning and Zoning Commission, READCO is seeking approval for the last three 72-unit apartment buildings and three freestanding eight-bay garages in the master plan for the Route 2 property. The site is being developed as a Neighborhood Design District, a floating zone that requires a master plan for the site and provides the Planning and Zoning Commission with a great deal of discretion about various aspects of the project. The commission approved adding six adjacent properties to the zone in mid-2024, including the Stop & Shop grocery store property at 91 Voluntown Road, an abandoned single-family home at 3 Voluntown Road and four additional vacant properties. READCO, which has owned the property since 1995, built the theater along with a Stop & Shop supermarket, McDonald’s restaurant, bank and Stonington Medical Center offices.
READCO owner Mike Lech said this week that people are excited for the apartments to become available and even come to the construction trailer to ask about leasing. He said there are currently about 40 people on a waiting list. But he said they won’t be waiting much longer, as the contractor, KBE Construction from Farmington, is ahead of schedule on the project and Lech expects to open two 36-unit apartment buildings in June. “We anticipated opening at the end of summer, but we really have made fantastic progress,” he said, attributing the speed to pre-purchasing materials to avoid disruptions caused by supply chain issues or tariffs, but also to the team he has assembled. He said that despite the multiple distinct projects occurring on the site, the company is laser-focused on the safety of the area’s drinking water. “Although we’ve had 25 years of stewardship on that site and never had a problem, we really do recognize how important it is to the municipality that the underground retention systems are up to snuff in every way,” Lech said. “We’re really focused, as always, on the stormwater and the recharge system, so that’s a big priority for us right now,” Lech said.
The company is also getting ready to break ground on an 80,000-square-foot technology center approved by the commission in December. The Stonington Technology Center, a four-story building with office, conference, research and development space, will be located on the corner of Liberty Street and Voluntown Road in place of a previously approved 30,000-square-foot recreational pickleball facility and an abandoned home on the property.
The pickleball facility will now be built farther north on Route 2, on other parcels the company acquired in August. A technology center is a shared space with offices, labs and specialized facilities that brings businesses and researchers under one roof to collaborate, develop and test new ideas. While many centers may host manufacturing spaces, the Pawcatuck facility will not. “We want to create a destination that makes sense, that is both accessible to Groton and accessible to Rhode Island and have amenities and create a lifestyle and create a place that people can live and commute and be a very respectable place to live,” he said, noting the location is halfway between Electric Boat in Groton and Quonset Point, Rhode Island.
Lech said the development will include approximately 40 units that will be affordable to a single person making.$63,000 a year or less (or a higher salary for larger families). The Planning and Zoning Commission has scheduled a public hearing on the application for Jan. 20.