S I T E S FOR SORE EYES

B Y CHRISTINE PALM

THE OLD SPENCER ARMS CO. FACTORY in Windsor, centrally located near

the town green and the train station is being renovated into condos.

Manufacturing Housing

Sometimes, Yankee ingenuity keeps getting smarter. In Windsor, just across over the railroad tracks from the village center, the old Spencer Arms Co. factory is being remade into First Town Square Condominiums. It's a great example of what happens when government, citizens and developers roll up their sleeves to work, not to throw punches.

When C.I.L. Development of Windsor, a private, for-profit arm of the nonprofit Corporation for Independent Living, first expressed interest in the 86,000-square-foot - brick factory, town officials wisely committed $800,000 to clean up the coal tar residue left by furnaces chugging away for more than a century. The town then acquired some land from the nearby Amtrak train station to create a public access road. The developer ponied up the rest. And the voters were pleased.

Despite its current shabbiness, the massive brick building, created in three stages beginning in 1882, has beautiful lines. From one end it looks like a Spanish mission, and from the front it looks like a prototypical New England manufacturer^'s dream. Which is exactly what it was.

Christopher Spencer, who invented a silk spooler for the Cheney Brothers' empire in Manchester, knew he was cut out for bigger things. With the Cheneys' blessing, Spencer built the factory along the Connecticut River and began making the nation's first successful ^"pump action^" repeating shotgun. (The savvy Cheneys invested in Spencer's guns, which earned them a fortune during the Civil War.)

Spencer Arms changed hands and eventually closed in 1907. Over the decades, the factory housed businesses ranging from Eddy Electric to the Vintage Radio and TV Museum. By June of next year, it will contain 44 single-floor, two-bedroom condos and six two-story, loft-style units. All will be market-rate, starting at about $190,000.

"For-profit ventures are a relatively new way for us to help offset the cost of our main work, which is supportive housing and community development," says David McKinley, C.I.L.'s vice president for development. "The great thing is this property^'s location, next to the town green, near all kids of shops, and about 100 feet from a two-mile walking trail along the Connecticut River." Not to mention the fact that residents will be able to walk out their front doors and catch one of eight daily trains to Hartford and New York.

If manufacturing is destined to die out in New England, at least there are some enlightened folks around making good use of the built legacy these 19th-century entrepreneurs left us.

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