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Design Review Board backs Electric Boat's Crystal Mall reuse plan, including workforce training center and major landscape/traffic changes
Summary
The board approved plans to adapt Crystal Mall at 850 Hartford Turnpike into a General Dynamics Electric Boat training, R&D and office campus, including a Sears-based workforce development center, roundabouts, expanded buffers and roughly 1,000 new trees.
The Waterford Design Review Board on Feb. 24 approved presentation materials for General Dynamics Electric Boat's adaptive-reuse plan for Crystal Mall (850 Hartford Turnpike), endorsing interior conversions, major circulation changes and a large landscape-screening program while noting staff will continue to refine design details.
John Casey, counsel for the applicant, and project lead Jim Waldrin described a phased redevelopment focused on workforce development for Electric Boat's Columbia-class submarine program. Jim said the Sears building will become a workforce development "school" and that the project prioritizes training, hiring and phased activation of mall assets to meet the Navy-driven schedule pressures.
Architect Chris Boxall explained the project is largely interior: the concourse will remain a primary circulation spine, anchor stores will be repurposed into offices, research and training spaces, and primary public access will be consolidated to a small number of monitored entrances to meet Electric Boat's security requirements.
Civil and landscape work will be visible to the public. Landscape architect Chad Frost described new entry thresholds, added sidewalks, widened egress lanes (including a third lane for a right turn informed by traffic modeling), and multiple roundabouts sized to accommodate semi-truck movements. The team proposes an evergreen roadside buffer along Route 85 and internal planting islands that together aim to screen much of the mall from the highway.
"We have roughly 550ish evergreen trees and about another 450 deciduous trees planned as part of this," Chad said, summarizing what the team described as nearly 1,000 new trees to vegetate the site. The plan also removes about 1.5 acres of asphalt while increasing parking capacity by about 200 spaces through more efficient layout and additional endcap islands.
Signage will shift from tall Crystal Mall pylons to smaller ground-based signs at entrances; the packet notes the total proposed sign area across entries is roughly 400+ square feet (about 100 square feet per entrance), reduced from an older, larger total. The team reported no permanent irrigation is proposed; plantings will rely on temporary establishment watering for the first one to two years and local plant sourcing where possible.
Commissioners asked about parking accounting (restaurant/tenant parking was counted separately), food-truck accommodations (space could be staged away from primary circulation), security (most exterior doors will be infilled or be egress-only and the site will be monitored by EB security), and traffic calming; the team said staggered work schedules and EB security will limit single-shift congestion typical of large industrial facilities.
A motion to accept the plans as presented carried by voice vote. Commissioners voiced support for the reuse, the landscape screening strategy and traffic-calming measures. The approval at the Design Review Board level will inform Planning & Zoning and permitting as the project advances.
Next steps: the project proceeds through Planning & Zoning and detailed design, with additional materials and specifications to be submitted for review.
