Bel Air planning staff and the developer of the Hartford Mall redevelopment on Sept. 4 asked the Planning Commission to grant a one-year extension of the site-plan approval for the residences at Hartford Mall, a 249-unit apartment community that was originally approved Jan. 4, 2024, and is scheduled to expire Jan. 4, 2026. The extension request would move the expiration to Jan. 4, 2027.

The request matters because the residences are part of a larger, multi-phase redevelopment of the failing mall and the developer told the commission the project needs the extra year to finish required plats, public-works agreements and building-permit applications before lenders and private investors will release construction capital.

At the meeting, Kevin Small, a staff member, summarized outstanding items and the timing for what remains to complete the final plan and record plat. For the developer, attorney Christopher Mudd of Venable LLP said the previously approved site plan covers the site plan, landscape plan and special approvals and that a subsequent streetscape approval was also required. “it's a 2 49 unit, apartment community with on-site parking deck and best in class amenities,” Mudd said while describing the site plan the commission is being asked to extend.

Mudd told the commission the project has been delayed by a complex combination of factors: agreements that had to be negotiated among two property owners and multiple developers, unanticipated on-site conditions discovered during post-approval investigations, and the need to secure sewer easements and other record conveyances. He said those ownership and easement negotiations took about 11 months and that engineers and consultants subsequently prepared road, utility and stormwater plans and a record plat. Mudd said that many consultants have been released to complete construction drawings (CDs) and that the applicant expects agency reviews, bond estimates and public-works agreements to follow before building permits can be issued.

Mudd described the scale of the residential portion alone as a large capital undertaking: “The apartment building itself, just phase 2, is gonna be $100,000,000 of investment to to build,” he said, and he added that construction drawings on a project this size can cost “a million and a half dollars or more.” He said typical financing combines roughly 70% debt from conventional lenders with about 30% from private investors who require risk mitigation and certainty before committing funds.

CDP representative Kyle Whitman told the commission the developer has secured the equity portion of funding. “We've actually secured all funding,” Whitman said. He characterized the extension request as the remaining procedural step to reach permitting and construction.

Commissioner Gillette raised traffic concerns and asked whether traffic analyses were being done for individual phases or the development as a whole. Kevin Small and Mudd explained the traffic impact analyses have been submitted on a phase-by-phase basis; Small said each phase’s study reflects then-current background traffic and that the phase 3 traffic study accounts for phase 2 traffic. Commissioners also discussed the Gateway intersection and signal operations; one staff response noted an entrance will “retain the light, but the light will become a flasher,” meaning it would no longer operate as a full signalized intersection for through traffic.

No final vote on the extension is recorded in the transcript provided to the commission. The applicant reported a record plat was due to be submitted the next day and that additional permit-level submissions for public sewer, stormwater, sediment and erosion-control, and public water were planned as the next milestones toward building permits and a construction start in mid-2026 to late 2027, per the applicant’s schedule.

The planning code cited at the meeting, Town Code section 165-73(B)(9), gives site-plan approvals a two-year lifespan and permits one single 12‑month extension; the extension requested tonight was the one allowed by that code section. The commission heard the applicant’s presentation and questions from commissioners and staff during the meeting; the transcript does not include a recorded vote on the extension.

If approved, the extension would preserve the developer’s existing approvals while CDP completes plats, agency reviews and construction drawings, and while coordination continues across multiple owners and future phases of the mall redevelopment.