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Sousa's Final March
Orange's retiring chief executive talks economic development for his town and the region
First Selectman Robert Sousa of Orange, the first Democrat to hold the post in the town's 177-year history, has decided not to seek a third term in office. He spoke with BNH about his tenure in office and reflected on his changing community.
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Business New Haven
8/23/99
By: BNH
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What do you expect to be doing after your term expires?
I expect to be spending more time at my law practice and significantly more time at home with my family. I already made a promise to my wife that four days a week I'll be home in time to have dinner with them. So that's what I'm going to do.
Purposely or not, the Post Road in Orange has to a large extent become the retail center of greater New Haven. Can you discuss the impact of development on small towns?
Orange's Post Road is vital to the town of Orange because it's about 14 percent of our tax base. Although we are concentrating on property south of the Post Road for a biotech campus, we're going to continue to concentrate on the Post Road for retail development.
We believe that with the construction of the Long Wharf mall [in New Haven], competition for the retail dollar is going to expand and that's going to require a town like Orange to make its Post Road more unique and we're going to try to find those types of stores that still will attract people to the Post Road in Orange.
How?
One of the first things on the agenda of our newly-formed Economic Development Corporation is to concentrate on the Post Road and to see what we can do to make it more unique. One of the things we're very happy with is that next year the state of Connecticut is going to be putting in a turning lane in the middle of the Post Road the length of the town which will help alleviate a great deal of the traffic congestion on the Post Road. This will help with the success of the Post Road because, obviously, if people can't get to the stores or have a great deal trouble with traffic, they'll be less inclined to come to Orange.
How do you view the impact on the region and specifically on Orange of a retail mall at Long Wharf?
I don't think municipalities should look at the mall as, if it's good for New Haven, it's bad for their town. Competition is good. I think the mall is going to be good for the region, but it means that small towns like Orange that, again, rely on a retail area - in our case the Post Road - for 14 percent of our tax revenue, have to look at what they do there and look at whether or not we can be a little bit more unique in the type of stores that we have.
People come to Orange for our stores right now, and many of those stores are not the type of stores that are going to be at the [Long Wharf] mall: the furniture stores, the carpet stores, Gateway computer. There's a uniqueness that we have now, and I think that it's going to be incumbent upon the town and the Economic Development Corporation to continue to search out those types of stores that will make us unique and, hopefully, actually benefit from the mall.
If the mall is going to attract significant traffic from the north into New Haven, and we can show those customers there's some reason to travel a few more miles further south and come to Orange, our businesses might actually benefit.
A lot of restaurants have been cropping up in Orange. Do you think that's a future growth niche?
I think the restaurants go hand-in-hand with the retail. The restaurants realize it's a good area because we have a significant traffic volume because of the stores that we have there. As long as the retail businesses on the Post Road are successful, the restaurants will be successful.
Can you discuss Orange's major economic development projects in the works and where they stand today?
The most significant one is the Enterprise & Technology Park, which is comprised of about 170 acres south of the Post Road. Where it stands today is we are very optimistic because of the number of conversations we have had with small biotech companies - some of which are located in this area and some of which are not - that [this project] is going to come to fruition and that they are going to eventually locate in our biotech park here in Orange.
We've also had some conversations with a major developer who constructs biotech space and I expect to see something come to fruition where we may be able to announce an agreement with a biotech company or two biotech companies before I leave office. That's the goal.
The Orange Economic Development Corporation, which is the private entity we partnered with to assist us with [this development], in the next few weeks will be announcing the hiring of a director of the corporation which I think will be of great assistance to the town and foster the likelihood of the biotech development of the park.
That's the major component of what we're doing. The second, again, is the enhancement of the Post Road. We'd like to talk to business owners on the Post Road and see what we can do to further enhance the Post Road as far as maybe esthetics are concerned. We know we've addressed the traffic issue.
Your biggest regret?
My biggest regret as far as economic development is concerned - although it's interesting now because that failure has probably spurred something that I'm very optimistic about - is probably Stew Leonard's. I think if we had handled it differently we would have been able to convince some of the opposition that it was not the albatross that they believed it was. Clearly, some of the opposition was politically motivated and did not want to hear anything closely resembling the facts, but there were a good number of people who, I think, truly opposed it because they were concerned it was going to be an albatross to the town of Orange.
I think it would have make a difference had we taken the time to talk to those individuals and hear their concerns and maybe explain to them what we were doing. Also, maybe if we had initiated some of the traffic-improvement programs prior to Stew Leonard's application being
filed, as opposed to [afterward], we would have been more successful.
I still think a Stew Leonard's store in this area would be good for the town of Orange. It brings with it not only a first-rate store and about $400,000 in tax revenue, but it brings a lot of jobs that people in our
town could use. I don't know how many seniors have come up to me and said they would have like the opportunity to have a part-time job in the store and how many parents have said their kids could have had a part-time job there in the summer.
But now, the interesting thing is that because of that failure and because we've decided to concentrate on biotech up there - for which I'm optimistic we can be successful - if Stew Leonard were here today I would say, 'Hey, listen. We're going to have a pretty vibrant Post Road, and you're the unique type of store that would fit on our Post Road.'
What advice do you have for your successor, whoever it might be?
I think the advice I would give is that you have to go the extra mile to make sure that, whatever you're proposing, that you've taken the time to explain it in as great detail as you can. Just because you think you understand what you're doing, don't assume that everybody else does. They don't have the advantage of having spent as much time on it as you may have in the planning.
Any future political plans?
Right now I've been asked whether I'm going to run for the state senate, and my answer's been if I had to make a decision today, the answer would be no, I'm just not ready.
I need to get some things in order, and my personal life is the primary reason I've chosen not to run again for this job. But there is a difference
between this job and serving in the state legislature. This job is a full-time job. I already have a full-time job, and it doesn't avail me the opportunity to spend the time with my family that I want to. I have a number of friends who are attorneys who are in the state legislature, and they've been able to balance their full-time job, their family life and their service in the legislature pretty well.
If there is a place for me and I feel I can contribute something in the next few years while my children are still young and while I still have to practice law, I will consider it.
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