The vital signs for Enfield’s commercial real estate market are among the strongest of the suburban communities along the I-91 corridor between Hartford and Springfield.

It’s the only town in the region with single-digit office vacancies, and it has a roster of stable corporate users including Mass Mutual, Brooks Brothers Group and LEGO Systems Inc.

But Enfield faces growing competition attracting and retaining companies in key industries like as medical device manufacturing and health care, two sectors that economic development officials are counting on to stabilize the commercial tax base and job market in coming years.

At the town’s first-ever economic development summit in September, panelists laid out a lengthy to-do list that could reposition the town for 21st-century growth: attracting nightlife and downtown-style mixed-use developments, encouraging high-quality multifamily development, upgrading transportation including public transit and fostering a startup environment.
All of those elements, local executives say, share a common theme: creating a desirable living and working environment for Millennials and even Generation X.

“It’s the biggest problem we have,” said Jayme Coates, general manager of device manufacturer Cirtec Medical Systems. “Our real issue is in the higher-educated engineers coming in. Nobody wants to move out to western Massachusetts and Connecticut. But when we do hire them, they stay.”

The looming departure of Hallmark, the town’s second-largest employer, underscores the fragility of major companies’ presence in the local economy. Hallmark’s closure of its 1-million-square-foot warehouse by next summer means the loss of nearly 800 jobs as it consolidates operations in Missouri, ending a 63-year run in Enfield.

Hallmark’s departure could destabilize the industrial market, where the vacancy rate is already in the 12 to 15 percent range, said Nicholas Morizio, president of the Hartford and New Haven region for Colliers International. Rents for industrial properties north of Hartford have been flat for much of the last decade.

“I don’t know if a developer will buy it empty at a million square feet, but you never know – somebody might take a chance,” he said.

Enfield and surrounding communities also face competition for commercial real estate users from the state of Connecticut’s Bradley Airport Development Zone, which was formed in 2011 and covers portions of East Granby, Windsor, Windsor Locks and Suffield.

The program grants 80 percent property tax exemptions for five years for companies that build, expand or renovate facilities for manufacturing, manufacturing research and machinery repairs. They also qualify for 10-year corporation business tax credits up to 25 percent.

“What they want (in Enfield) and what’s out there are two different things,” Morizio said. “Most of the people who are looking (for real estate) in the Enfield market are warehouse users, not manufacturers. And if you’re a manufacturer, you want to be in the Bradley Development Zone, because that offers the tax incentives.”

 Attracting Industry

East Longmeadow, Massachusetts-based Cirtec will relocate to 55 Print Shop Road in Enfield later this year after leasing 35,000 square feet for expansion. Tax incentives from the state of Connecticut were a major factor in the move for Cirtec, which makes pacemakers and other implantable medical devices, said Coates, the general manager.

But attracting qualified younger technicians and engineers remains a lingering problem, she said. Prospective employees complain of the scarcity of nightlife and unique restaurants in Enfield and the capital city, Coates said.

“The first thing I point to is West Hartford. It’s only 40 minutes away, and that’s the main draw for the younger folks,” she said.

Kirti Patel, CEO of Enfield-based life science manufacturer Eppendorf Manufacturing Corp., says local initiatives like free cloud wifi services could make Enfield stand out. Eppendorf faces hiring cycles averaging six months to fill open positions such as engineers and regulatory compliance officers, Patel said.

“Now people say, ‘Hey, where is Enfield?’ That is part of the challenge,” Patel said. “You have Boston and New Haven, and these cities are competitor for us in hiring.”

Home-grown talent is part of the solution. Eppendorf works with Asnuntuck Community College on an 18-month training program for technicians, which is 50 percent subsidized by state workforce training funds.

Encouraging development of more multifamily housing stock should be a priority to retain Millennials in the suburbs, Patel said. The area has limited high-quality rental properties, and some employees prefer to live in extended-stay corporate housing.

Undercutting Cities On Cost

While Hartford suburbs lose young talent to larger cities, there’s an opportunity to reclaim life science and medical device manufacturing from high-cost regions, said Terri Wilson, executive director of Biomedical Engineering Alliance & Consortium, a Hartford-based nonprofit trade group that promotes growth of the medical technology industry in the region.

Medical device startups in Greater Boston indicate they are looking for low-cost manufacturing space and are willing to consider the Hartford region, Wilson said. A half-dozen are mulling the group’s offer of space in its new facility in Hartford’s North End.

“They told us, ‘We love to innovate up here, but we can’t afford to manufacture it here. If you could devise a way to get short-term proprietary manufacturing done to help us get our products to trial, we’ll bring our business to you,’” she said.