With CT brownfields cleanup grant, developer plans new life for former Stanadyne Corp. complex

The sprawling Windsor industrial complex that has sat largely vacant since Stanadyne Corp. left Connecticut 13 years ago could soon house distribution centers, new manufacturers and perhaps even small research and development operations, according to the nationally known Industrial Realty Group .

Connecticut recently awarded $2 million in brownfields cleanup grants to the town, a decision that IRG said Tuesday was pivotal to enable its work to renovate almost 580,000 square feet of space that once housed Stanadyne Corp.’s headquarters and production plant.

For Windsor, that offers the prospect of potentially hundreds of new jobs along with a fresh source of tax revenue. It also benefits the rest of central Connecticut, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz said at a ceremony outside the Deerfield Road complex on Tuesday morning.

“There will be companies that are coming here, probably new manufacturing, warehousing, distribution and offices,” Bysiewicz said.

“This brownfield remediation funding is going to help create jobs and tax revenue and it will be an economic development driver for the entire region,” Bysiewicz said. This area is part of an industrial park, so this is going to create synergies with the other businesses.”

Stanadyne, a Connecticut legacy manufacturer for more than a century, left for North Carolina in 2011, taking more than 250 jobs. The company produced automotive fuel injectors and filters, and left behind factory buildings contaminated by asbestos, toxic chemicals and industrial solvents.

Even though the parking lot is literally a minute from I-291 and barely twice that to I-91, the main building 334,000 square feet of factory space — has stayed empty ever since. Short-term tenants have periodically used sections of two smaller buildings with a total of about 241,000 square feet, but the complex was mostly considered an abandoned white elephant.

“The environmental issues were holding up buyers or lessors from coming forward to use that property,” Bysiewicz said.

Stanadyne declared Chapter 11 in 2023, and an investor group led by Cerebus Capital Management took over its assets. The roughly 50-acre Windsor campus was put up for sale at a bankruptcy auction, and Ohio-based Industrial Realty Group acquired it for $250,000.

“The property was about to get abandoned and turned over to the state or the town of Windsor. With the environmental implications nobody really wanted it,” said Justin Lichter, a vice president at IRG.

“We’re excited to bring the jobs back, put the property back on the tax rolls and reinvest in the community,” Lichter said. “We’re rebranding as Connecticut River Business Park. There’s a lot of heavy power on the site so we can bring jobs back in manufacturing and distribution, we even have R and D facilities that are unique and expensive to build from scratch.”

IRG specializes in remodeling and leasing large, empty industrial spaces, and owns about 10 million square feet in Connecticut and 100 million across the country. One of its landmark Connecticut holdings is the former Pratt & Whitney plant in Southington, a 650,000-square-foot facility that’s now entirely leased out.

Lichter told Bysiewicz and town officials Tuesday that the former headquarters office building on the site needs minimal work and could be ready for tenants quickly. A manufacturing and warehouse building alongside it has also undergone cleanup and refurbishment, and could be leased fairly soon, he said.

The bigger challenge is the third building, a 334,000-square-foot factory that requires extensive remediation and renovation. That job could take one to two years, Lichter projected.