The Great Tree Massacre of ’24 is Underway in Waterbury

If you drove through Waterbury along I-84 over the past couple of weeks, did you smell sawdust near the Texas Roadhouse and BJ's? Did you happen to notice that hundreds of trees have disappeared from a Waterbury hilltop? That's progress, unfortunately.

Waterbury is a city filled with hills, and the top of one of them is undergoing a radical transformation. Interstate Lane in Waterbury crept under the radar for decades until the unthinkable happened in 2022, when Interstate Lane's most famous resident - A.M.S. Bakeries, the producer of Milite's, Arturo's, and Spinella's bread, went out of business. I had no idea how badly I would miss our precious Milite's grinders.

The hilltop trees behind the BJ's, Texas Roadhouse, Stop & Shop, and Pepe's in Waterbury are coming down to make way for a new 216,000 square foot medical office complex, according to hartbusiness.com. While this area of Waterbury has developed into a major commercial and retail corridor, residential neighborhoods located next to the proposed complex have voiced their concerns over the project, according to hartfordbusiness.com. The project's developer - 84 Vistas llc, overcame challenges to the site's zoning regulations in January 2024, and now that the weather has started to warm up, the sawdust is flying.

Whenever I pulled into the BJ's gas station on Reidville Drive during the Wintertime, I used to be worried that the huge icicles hanging off of the rocky outcrops of the hill, or some of those boulders would come crashing through my car. Next year? I'll be worried about a senior citizen driving off that cliff.