By LISA CAPOBIANCO
STAFF WRITER
The Bristol City Council moved this week to approve a $140,000 grant for the development of manufacturing facility GMN-USA LP in the Southeast Bristol Business Park. The 280,000 square-foot facility will host GMN, a supplier of high-speed machine spindles, ball bearings, clutches and seals. GMN has been an international producer of these products for more than 85 years, with one factory in neighboring Farmington.
The Bristol Development Authority approved the plan during last month’s City Council meeting and the funds in the project’s budget have now been approved, with $8,000 of the Park Drive development’s $140,000 budget contributing to job creation from the facility. Gary Quirion, president of GMN-USA, said construction is assumed to begin in April and be completed by early 2016.
This development is another step toward progress in a plan for the West End neighborhood adopted in June 2009 by the Bristol Planning Commission.
According to a poll referenced by Bristol during a City Council meeting held last Tuesday, 27 percent of Bristol citizens think that more businesses in downtown Bristol would improve the area. To promote further business activity in Bristol, especially downtown, two additional ideas were suggested: the assembly of a task force of large and small business owners in Bristol, and the motion for city planner Alan Weiner to work with the Department of Transportation on a walking or bicycling path following the Pequabuck river. Both initiatives aim to generate more business in Bristol’s downtown area.
The task force will serve as a business plan to encourage startup companies to settle in Bristol, incentivizing expansion of local businesses and encouraging the establishment of more businesses in the city. Mayor Cockayne said the startup will aid their aggressive efforts to increase the city’s tax base.
While hoping the tax base will grow from large-scale companies such as GMN, the task force will allow more small businesses to contribute as well. Cockayne applauded the effort to establish this force, which he said will “not only help bring established companies to Bristol and help the ones that are here grow, but also work with new companies and help them grow.”
To help improve access to downtown businesses, the council moved to begin planning for a path along the Pequabuck River, better connecting Rockwell Park to the rest of the city.
Connecting Rockwell Park to downtown Bristol was a suggestion included in the 2011 West End study, which laid out proposals to enhance community involvement and opportunity in the neighborhood.
City Council Member Henri Martin, who raised the motion on plans for a new path at this month’s meeting, hopes it will reach not only downtown, but Memorial Boulevard, the Hoppers-Birge Pond Nature Preserve and Federal Hill.
In the Bristol Planning Commission’s 2011 vision statement, access to the Pequabuck River was listed as a strength of the West End, and integrating the river was listed as a first-priority in the Blueprint for change, in order to achieve “convenient transportation options” for downtown.
Council Member Martin hopes the plans for the path will begin right away, emphasizing the West End Study’s call for commitment to “time, attention, effort and resources” to continue progress downtown.