The Transformation Brownfields Crushed To Make Way For Waterbury’s Future

Story and Photographs

By John Murray

Massive piles of twisted steel, brick and concrete lay along Freight Street, Mill Street and South Main Street in Waterbury. Anyone driving past these heaps of industrial debris can be forgiven for thinking they were cruising through a war zone.

The Waterbury Button factory crumpling in the South End looks like it has been surgically cleaved open by a missile strike.

Despite the unsightly appearance, Waterbury is not a war zone, but is engaged in a battle with its storied industrial past. Gone are the clock and watch factories. The three largest brass factories in the world went dormant four decades ago leaving toxic Brownfields in their wake.

Scovill Brass was leveled and transformed into the Brass Mill Mall in the 1990s, Chase Brass in the Waterville section is now home to new industries that coveted its infrastructure, and Anaconda Brass on Freight Street is now in the final stages of demolition, and entering the remediation phase. What the

Anaconda site can become in the future largely depends on the level of toxins in the ground.

The Anamet site in the heart of the South End has been demolished and is currently out to bid for developers who covet the open space at the intersection of Route 8 and I-84.

The complicated process of transitioning the burnt remnants of Nova Dye on Mill Street into a new park and sports complex has taken a decade, but South End kids will be playing baseball on a new field in a year.

It is not an overstatement to proclaim that Waterbury is currently undergoing its most significant transformation in 50 years.

Yes, it’s an ugly process, and yes, it’s a painfully slow one.

No one knows this better than Waterbury Mayor Neil O’Leary, a sometimes charming, sometimes bruising old school politician who makes things happen.

Love him or not, and there are plenty of people in both camps, Neil O’Leary has dominated the political process as effectively as any mayor in the city. Originally promising to seek only four years in office, O’Leary is in the homestretch of his 12th year at the helm of City Hall. He is the longest continuously serving mayor in Waterbury history.

And it’s taken him all of those 12 years to pull the current transformation through the bureaucratic labyrinth of obtaining property titles, and snaring tens of millions of state and federal dollars for demolition and remediation work.

When historians look back on the reign of Neil O’Leary as mayor, it will be his Brownfield remediation work that will shine brightest. He hurled himself into Brownfield issues nearly a year before he was sworn into office. He traveled to Philadelphia to attend a national Brownfield symposium in 2011, worked closely with Atty Gary O’Connor who is Co-Chairman of the Brownfield Working Group (appointed by the General Assembly of CT), and has leveraged relationships with U.S. Senators, Congressmen, Congresswomen, Governors and State Legislators to move the projects forward. It has been a remarkable achievement, yet frustration with the process has been a constant for O’Leary since he took the office on December 1st, 2011.

Everything took much longer than he had hoped.

Under his watch there have been other major projects completed; a renovation of the Green, a renovation of Library Park, an upgrade of East Main Street from the Green to Waterbury Police HQs, the construction of a stunning Public Works Facility on Huntingdon Avenue, purchasing the Rose Hill property and selling it to the Greater Waterbury YMCA, and overhauling all city parks. An enormous development that would result in an Amazon distribution center straddling the Waterbury?Naugatuck town lines continues to wind it’s way through the permitting process.

Other projects underway are the renovation of the Chase Building, obtaining initial funding to demolish the Waterbury Button Company, and beginning the massive remediation process at the old Anaconda Brass on Freight Street.

During a four-hour interview in December 2022, Mayor O’Leary updated the Observer on the status of major projects in the city, and remained excited about the future of the Anamet property which he said has the potential to be a game changer in the South End. The vision for Freight Street continues to be a mix of business and housing nestled up against the train station. With tens of millions of federal and state dollars invested in upgrading the Waterbury rail corridor, travel in and out of Waterbury via train will become increasingly more attractive.

When he was finished talking about infrastructure projects the conversation turned towards his own political future. O’Leary is up for re-election in November and there is chatter all across the city that he won’t seek another four term in office.

“I haven’t made up my mind yet,” he said, “but there is certainly something to be said about going out on top. The city is in better shape and I’m proud of the projects that we have completed, and the ones that are moving forward.”

O’Leary has been at this juncture before. He announced in July 2015 that he would not seek a third term in office, and then changed his mind a few weeks later and cruised to re-election. Few political pundits thought he would seek a second 4-year term in 2019, but he surprised everyone and clobbered five opponents in a general election victory that snared 68% of the vote.

The mayor is keenly aware about the talk about his future swirling around the city and named several possible candidates that were already posturing to replace him.

“I am tired,” O’Leary said. “I’ve been a public servant in Waterbury for 42 years, and for most of that time I’ve been on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Every murder, every water main break, and every emergency in the city I get a call, often at 2 or 3 in the morning.”

He said he thinks about working a job that wouldn’t be as demanding, but moments later he said he loves his job.

With the election ten months away O’Leary still has plenty of time to refuel his tank for anoither campaign. And whatever he’s said, to whoever he said it to, know this about Neil O’Leary, if he chooses to run again; he is nearly unbeatable. His most formidable opponents have all moved out of Waterbury.

He might be tired in December 2022, but when the weather breaks, all bets are off.

And long after the election of 2023 has been decided - with or without Neil O’Leary as a candidate - the impact of what he has accomplished in transforming the infrastructure of the city will reverberate for the next century. •