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Depot Crossing to languish no more By Daniel Jackson The Berlin Citizen
By mid-January CIL Development, Inc, a nonprofit specializing in real estate and development, will begin work on 848 Farmington Ave., also known as Depot Crossing. The building is a cornerstone of the town’s efforts to revitalize the area surrounding the train station and along Farmington Avenue. This building has stood unfinished, its Tyvek protecting the building from the snow of winter and the rain of summer, since the beginning of the recession. The Planning and Zoning Commission approved CIL’s plan for the property at its meeting Dec. 12, but not before CIL received help from the towns newly-formed Facade and Landscaping Grant Program. B erlin’s Economic
Development Director Jim Mahoney told the P&Z the first time Depot Crossing first came before the commission was Aug. 23, 2007. Now, after f ive years, “We’re at the last leg.” Martin Legault, president and CEO of CIL, told the P&Z the company plans to renovate the building as a mixed use building, with the first floor occupied by businesses and the top two floors filled with 16 housing units. The non-profit company creates living spaces for people who have low income or who are disabled. When they develop for-profit properties, the profits go towards the company’s non-profit mission, he said. CIL is the same company that manages Sherwood Lofts by Paper Goods Pond. CIL tweaked the original plans for the building. See Building / Page 7
Developer CIL plans to begin work on Depot Crossing in mid-January. | (Daniel Jackson / The Berlin Citizen)
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Thursday, December 19, 2013
Like in snow days past, people went sledding By Daniel Jackson The Berlin Citizen
Dec. 10 was the first snow day in Berlin. Emma Nagel, age 8, woke up at seven to go to Griswold Elementary School, just like she does every morning. The snow hadn’t even begun. “Mom was like ‘guess what’” Emma said. The school canceled school ahead of the flurries that began around 8 a.m. You know what that means. Yup. Snow day. On snow days, Emma will usually drink hot chocolate or go to the movie theater. But this snow day, this very first snow day of Winter 2013, was for sledding. That evening, about a dozen sledders dot the hill behind Griswold school. They carry orange sleds and blue, plastic saucers. As the sky grows dark, they make a few more trips down the hill before they head home. “I knew she wanted to go sledding,” said Emma’s dad, Tom Nagel. He got out of work early and, together, they hit the slope behind Griswold school at about 2:30 p.m. Dusk was beginning to deepen at 4 p.m. As they talked, Emma leaned on the guardrail along the parking lot. Sometimes, she will take food dye and squirt it out on clean snow. Once, in front of her cousins, she ate snow dyed with yellow food dye. “Yeah, she likes to play jokes,” Nagel said At first, the snow stuck to the sled when the pair started sledding. It was slow going for Emma.
Youth climb the hill behind Griswold Elementary School after a sledding run. | (Daniel Jackson / The Berlin Citizen) But now, after sledders went down time and time again, the slope is fast. At the bottom, the group piled snow into a jump. Nagel hopes the weather stays cold, that it keeps snowing. As for the two, they head home to hot chocolate and dinner. Joe Samojla watches his two sons and one of their friends from the top of the hill. The family’s dog, Ginger,
chases snowballs. Samojla is “Surprised there’s not more kids, though. Usually it’s jammed packed.” As soon as he got home from work, “they dragged me out.” The boys make one more run down the slope. Samojla remembers when he was a student at Griswold. The old principal would spin the kids on the metal saucers See Sledding / Page 5
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Volume 17, Number 51
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