Corporate Shuffling Helps Tolland and South Windsor, But Hurts Vernon

Gerber Scientific and TicketNetwork are the latest major businesses in north central Connecticut to engage in the corporate game of real estate checkers, and the pieces sliding around are having a major impact on three towns.

• Tolland went from a potential loser to a winner.

• South Windsor went from a likely winner to a loser to a big-time winner.

• Vernon's pieces fell off the board.
 
TicketNetwork announced Wednesday that it was abandoning its longtime home on Bolton Road in Vernon for the sprawling Gerber Scientific corporate campus just over the South Windsor line on Kelly Road.

South Windsor had been temporarily left hanging when Gerber Scientific announced it was consolidating its operations and moving everything to its facilities on Industrial Park Road in Tolland.

Meanwhile, conventional business wisdom over the past seven years said Gerber Scientific would never leave its main campus in South Windsor. Tolland was sweating out one consolidation decision after another. Now the company is parking itself in Tolland.

''It's very significant,'' said Tolland Economic Development Commission Chairman George Mantak. ''We have the impact of taxes and employment, but it is also as much psychological as anything.''

It's the second major corporate exodus Tolland has avoided over the past decade.  About 10 years ago, then-Town Manager Timothy Tieperman brokered a deal for Dari Farms to move from cramped quarters off Route 74 to a large space in the business park off Route 30. Tieperman announced the deal prematurely, at least where Dari Farms was concerned, and the company nearly resumed negotiations with a town in Massachusetts.

The two sides eventually shook hands and Dari Farms stayed. 

Both Dari Farms and Gerber Scientific are located near the Vernon line.  

TicketNetwork, an online ticket exchange service, has been in Vernon since 2002, first operating call centers out of small offices. The company eventually grew to more than 200 employees after it moved to Bolton Road near exit 66 off Interstate-84, Vernon Mayor Jason McCoy said on Thursday.

South Windsor Town Manager Matthew Galligan said TicketNetwork is expected to expand and house 325 employees in the space Gerber is vacating.

McCoy said losing TicketNetwork would not adversely affect Vernon's tax base, but added he does not like seeing businesses leave.

''I do not want any business to see TicketNetwork leaving and think Vernon is not a good place to conduct business,'' he said. ''Vernon is a good place to be.''

McCoy said he thought he, the town and TicketNetwork CEO Donald Vaccaro had a good relationship and added Vaccaro and his company even contributed to his political campaigns.

But local regulatory bodies have rejected a series of expansion efforts, the last being in October when TicketNetwork requested a zone change.

McCoy said he thinks town officials may have ''created the wrong impression,'' during the process, but in a news release issued on Wednesday, Vaccaro took a few shots at Vernon.

"TicketNetwork's expansion efforts have been fully embraced by the Town of South Windsor. We accepted and are thrilled to relocate our offices to a business-friendly locale which will allow us to house all of our employees under one roof.  South Windsor has been highly accommodating and we are very pleased with our decision. "

Vaccaro wrote in the release, "In a post- recession period, it's important for local economic and government leaders to recognize the benefits expanding enterprises can bring to their constituents. South Windsor's government officials seized the opportunity to attract another growing company to its list of large employers."

Efforts to get Vaccaro to elaborate were unsuccessful on Wednesday. A secretary first said he was busy with many media calls, then said he was responding only by e-mail.

A public relations spokeswoman then said he was referring media inquiries to a news release and then she said Vaccaro was "under the weather.''

At about 12:30 p.m., a black stretch limousine was parked behind the TicketNetwork building in Vernon and about an hour later, a similar vehicle was taking a group of people on a tour through the Gerber campus in South Windsor.

The public relations spokeswoman did not return an e-mail asking who that might be.

South Windsor's Galligan has been taking it all in stride. He said he went from lamenting the loss of a major corporate resident to having a company bust into town and lay $7 million on the table to buy the property.

''There was not much we could do as far as taxes are concerned, but we did welcome the company here,'' Galligan said.

Galligan said he believed the state offered incentives to TicketNetwork, but an e-mail to the governor's office about any possible concessions went unreturned.

South Windsor was one of six Connecticut municipalities that had approached TicketNetwork since the middle of last year, Vaccaro's news release said.

Galligan said he knows Simsbury and Hamden courted the company in addition to South Windsor, as well as towns in New York and Massachusetts. He said Gerber should vacate the premises totally by October, paving the way for TicketNetwork to be fully operational there by winter.

Vernon is left craving a major business tenant replacement. Shaun Gately was recently hired as the town's economic development coordinator. McCoy said he and Gately have made a strategic plan a priority.

Two supermarket chains, Aldi and Price Chopper have developed large stores in town, and Stop & Shop took over a void left by the departure of Shaw's.

But over the years, Vernon has been teased by Home Depot over two locations along the I-84 corridor, Wal-Mart near I-84 and a combination residential and commercial endeavor on farmland off Dart Hill Road never matured.

Does something have to break?

"Yes, it does, McCoy said. "And we want to make something happen."