The historic textile hub of Vernon, CT, is mired in a decade-long slog to convert a massive complex of vacant, crumbling mills into 200-plus new apartments—a difficult and costly process that underscores the difficulty of adaptive reuse as Connecticut faces the nation’s worst housing shortage.
The massive project, now on its third developer, revolves around a 130,000-square-foot complex comprising a dozen connected buildings that for decades housed the Amerbelle, Daniel’s, and Anocoil mills near the center of town, which is on the northeast outskirts of Hartford.
Shaun Gately, director of development services for the town of Vernon, tells Realtor.com® that the defunct mills—the oldest of which date to 1868—are integral to the community’s identity, having produced wool for presidential suits, the first parachute to land on Mars, and 30% of the world’s sailcloth.
“It’s part of our skyline,” says Gately. “It wouldn’t be the same if they were gone. So the town, the state, our federal partners, and the developer are all hoping to preserve the buildings and have them remain part of the community.”
The last factory ceased operations sometime between 2012 and 2015, and since then, the town has been looking for a viable path forward for the site.
According to Gately, Vernon faced a dilemma: Whether demolishing the blighted mills or redeveloping them, costly environmental remediation was unavoidable due to decades of industrial contamination.
Why new housing won versus the wrecking ball
Since much of the state funding for environmental cleanup was contingent on preserving the historic structures, stakeholders moved to convert the existing buildings into housing rather than knocking them down.
However, Gately says there was also an emotional dimension to the decision-making.
“If you go inside and you see the timbers, and you see the brick, and you see the water outside a window, you know that they should stay,” he says of the old mill structures, which sit where the Hockanum River cuts through the heart of the complex.
“It’s how the community was formed. This entire town, our whole main street and downtown, was built around the mills because the mills were the employment center.”
The plan is to transform the warren of dilapidated industrial structures into roughly 215 units of workforce housing intended for people earning 80% to 120% of the local median income, plus at least 5,000 square feet of commercial space.
“Converting 130,000 square feet of blighted, tax-negative industrial space into more than 200 apartments is a genuine win, preserving community character while adding meaningful density steps from a village center,” says Realtor.com senior economic research analyst Hannah Jones.
Vernon Mayor Dan Champagne tells Realtor.com that the project has three main objectives: beautifying the entrance to downtown, cleaning up a blighted site, and injecting much-needed affordable housing into the local market.
The latest developer that came on board, Atlanta-based Camden Management Partners, which specializes in mill redevelopment, will use state and federal tax credits to help finance the project.
The grueling reality of remediation
But before construction can begin, the town must complete a large-scale, multimillion-dollar cleanup of the site. Daniel’s mill, which produced fire retardant during the 1960s and 1970s, poses the greatest challenge because it is permeated with highly toxic PCB chemicals, requiring the dismantling of every brick and beam.
It took municipal leaders years to cobble together approximately $7.5 million in federal and state grants—with the final $2.5 million being awarded by Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont in March—to launch the arduous remediation process.
Once the cleanup is complete sometime next year, the sprawling site along East Main Street will be handed off to the developer, who is expected to spend five more years turning the defunct mills into rentals.
“When I first met with him, one of the things he said was that he doesn’t foresee a profit coming for quite a few years before or after he finishes the mill, but I guess this is pretty much a long-term investment for him,” says Champagne.
While Gately estimates a $60 million price tag to redevelop the complex before a single resident can move in, the project’s developer remains committed to the vision.
The town official concedes that transforming an old industrial site is much costlier than securing a vacant parcel of land and constructing a brand-new apartment tower, but there are other factors to consider beyond balance sheets.
“If we can provide affordable units and keep the culture and architecture and everything there, then I think it’s a win.”
Connecticut’s desperate hunt for housing supply
Mill redevelopment has been booming throughout the Northeast and parts of the South for decades, as cities and towns across Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the Carolinas race to transform eyesores into affordable housing hubs that anchor both historic preservation and community revitalization.
In Connecticut, a survey conducted by the organization Preservation Connecticut identified some 1,500 industrial sites as potential candidates for redevelopment.
It comes at a crucial time as “The Constitution State” grapples with the most severe inventory scarcity crunch in the U.S. when comparing March 2026 supply levels to norms before the COVID-19 pandemic.
A housing data analysis from Realtor.com reveals that in March, there were 78% fewer homes for sale in Connecticut compared to 2017–19 levels.
Last fall, Connecticut was one of just seven states to earn an F on the Realtor.com State-by-State Housing Report Card, part of the Let America Build campaign that tracks how effectively each state balances affordability and new construction.
Emblematic of much of the Northeast, Connecticut’s housing supply is severely constrained by zoning restrictions, high construction costs, and limited buildable land, putting upward pressure on prices and leaving many residents priced out.
In March, the median listing price in Connecticut stood at $507,500, which was more than $90,000 above the national figure.
A recent “Fair Share” housing study commissioned by the state Legislature showed that Connecticut must add between 120,000 and 380,000 new housing units to meet current demand—a massive supply gap that mirrors the crisis roiling neighboring Massachusetts.
All this leads to one conclusion: Connecticut must expand its affordable housing through every available avenue, from new construction to adaptive use of existing properties. However, Jones points out that the Vernon mill project illustrates both the promise and the pace problem of this approach.
“Mill redevelopments like Vernon’s are valuable contributors to long-term housing relief, but Connecticut and its Northeast neighbors will need to pair adaptive reuse with zoning reform that allows multifamily housing construction near transit and faster permitting pipelines to really move the needle on housing supply and affordability,” she says.
For Gately, however, the project transcends supply and demand metrics—it is about historic legacy.
“If you just tore everything down and built new, it’d be nice,” he says. “It just wouldn’t be the same.”
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