The plan to build Utopia Studios – a $1.6 billion project that includes movie studios and a theme park – will move forward after residents in Preston voted Tuesday 1,330 to 1,023 in favor of the development agreement between the town and Utopia.
Almost 70 percent of voters turned out to weigh in on the matter, and the referendum passed by a margin of 327 votes. Last year, 60 percent of the small town’s 3,400 eligible residents voted on the project, resulting in a final tally of 1,508 to 256 to allow the town to move ahead with negotiations for a development deal with Utopia.
“My gut tells me it’s a horse race,” Preston First Selectman Robert Congdon told the Associated Press on the day of the referendum. “It’s real close.”
Congdon was not available for comment by The Commercial Record’s press time.
Three-Phase Plan
Under the development agreement, Utopia would pay the estimated $35 million to $50 million cost of environmental cleanup of the site and give the town $12 million to cover the first four years of tax payments, among other conditions, according to the AP.
New York-based Utopia plans to build a development that would include movie studios, theme parks, a performing arts college and hotels on the site of the former Norwich Hospital.
The town spent months looking for proposals for the site. Utopia’s ultimately was deemed the most promising. A year ago, Preston voters urged the town to move forward with negotiations.
The land on which the project would be developed is a 470-acre site located mostly in Preston, but with some of the acreage spilling over into Norwich. The boarded-up buildings that made up Norwich Hospital – a state mental health facility that closed about 10 years ago – still dot the land.
Utopia is planning a 12-year, three-phase development that would depend on local, state and federal approvals. The project would “build on existing regional assets and utilize community input to create a first-class destination resort sensitive to the town’s and the community’s historical integrity and character,” according to Utopia’s proposal.
The Day has reported that Utopia Chief Financial Officer Joseph Gentile said Tuesday night that his goal is to have Utopia open on July 4, 2009.
Preston residents would see a decrease in their property taxes if the project is built, and have received mailing from both supporters and opponents of the project, according to the AP.
Preston Residents for Utopia, a group supported by organized labor, says the development will bring jobs, educational opportunities and potential tax benefits. However, the opposition group Preston Residents for Responsible Development is raising concerns about increased traffic and the lack of a feasibility study.
Utopia Studios has no commitments for financial backing from lenders, but has received letters of interest. Luxmac Covino & Co., a financing company in New York, has told Utopia that it is interested in providing or arranging a $70 million loan for the development, according to the AP.
The key points of the development are the production campus, Utopia Studios, which would include movie and television soundstages and music recording studios; Utopia Studios Theme Parks, which would be a four-day, all-year and all-weather set of five theme parks similar to Universal Studios; and Utopia School of the Arts, a performing arts college that would use some of the existing buildings on the site.
In addition, the company is planning 4,200 hotel rooms on the property in family resort hotels. A convention center resort is also a possibility, but would be developed on the Norwich portion of the property by an independent developer chosen by Utopia.
“[Utopia] is envisioned to work as an epicenter, or anchor and destination location, for the other popular tourism sites located in close proximity to our proposed development,” according to the proposal. “Currently, the site is located between the region’s two existing casinos, which cater to over 25 million visitors per year. Utopia Studios will enhance this dense, well-funded tourist market by providing a family-oriented destination location within the largest tourist attraction locale in the state of Connecticut.”
