The owner of the Canton Village shopping center is moving ahead with plans to tear down several storefronts and houses near Route 44, clearing the way for two new mixed-use buildings with 36 apartments or condos as the first phase of a redevelopment that would eventually bring about 100 apartments to the plaza.
Canton Village Realty LLC is seeking town permission to demolish multiple buildings on the property, according to the Hartford Courant. The company has spent more than $4 million buying most of the shopping center and two adjoining properties, and plans call for replacing the entire east side of the plaza along with a section fronting Route 44, including two vacant houses and the Applegate Farm Market building. Applegate Farm Market opened at the site about five years ago, on a parcel that previously housed a McDonald's outlet, per the Courant's reporting.
The plan would turn the Applegate property, just south of the plaza's main entry drive, into a coffee shop with a drive-through lane. Across the entry drive, the developer envisions two three-story buildings, each with commercial and retail businesses on the ground floor and apartments stacked above on the second and third floors. The first building would run about 24,000 square feet with 14 apartments, while the second would measure roughly 34,000 square feet with 22 apartments, the Courant reported. Canton Village Realty has not publicly released apartment sizes or planned leasing rates.
What the Town's Zoning File Shows
The project is formally before the Canton Planning and Zoning Commission as an application to establish a Canton Village Mixed Use Center District and approve a Type II Design Plan, according to the Town of Canton. The town's filing describes two mixed-use buildings totaling up to 60,000 square feet plus a 2,033-square-foot restaurant at 220 and 224 Albany Turnpike. Project engineer Chris Pawlowski said the two buildings would total almost 60,000 square feet in addition to the coffee shop, and that ground floors could include medical offices, commercial, retail, restaurant and cafe uses with apartments above, per the Courant.
The commission had been scheduled to hear first-phase details during the week of October 20, but that presentation has been delayed until November 18. Preliminary concepts for the redevelopment first surfaced during an informal pre-application review session in spring 2026, when property owner Brian Sewell and Pawlowski, of C&K Engineering, walked local land-use officials through early site layouts, according to Patch.
A Bigger Plan Beyond Phase One
The full build-out is larger than the first phase alone. Canton Village Realty has proposed eventually demolishing the plaza's entire eastern half and replacing it with retail, a restaurant and 72 apartments, with the remainder of the roughly 100 planned units built in a later construction phase, per the Courant. The company also envisions two additional three-floor mixed-use buildings at the southern end of the property off Dowd Avenue.
That expanded footprint reflects land to the north that Canton Village Realty has acquired since the project began taking shape. The company paid $2.7 million for a large section of the plaza and $1.45 million for two additional properties, buying both parcels in spring 2026 to grow the project's footprint, the Courant reported.
Not everything on the site is changing. The western half of the property would remain largely untouched because it belongs to other owners, and it's home to At the Rooftop, which underwent extensive reconstruction after Mikado moved out, and Larsen Ace Hardware, which would be unaffected by the redevelopment, according to the Courant.
Construction Timeline and Local Pushback
Per a zoning memo, C&K Engineering has said construction would run from spring 2027 through fall 2028. That timeline sits within a broader shift along Canton's commercial spine: the Canton Planning and Zoning Commission already approved site plans in January 2024 for 54 multifamily apartment units nearby at 38 and 42 Dowd Avenue, a sign of growing housing density behind Route 44's storefronts, according to CT Construction Digest.
Local business owners had mixed reactions when redevelopment plans first surfaced in April, with some welcoming overdue storefront updates and others wary of new apartments and reshuffled parking, FOX61 reported. The redevelopment falls under Canton's Form-Based Design Code, a zoning framework adopted in early 2018 that was built to encourage walkable mixed-use corridors and earned an honorable mention in the 2019 Driehaus Form-Based Codes Awards, as noted by Smart Growth America.
Housing Context in Canton
The push for more apartments comes in a town where rental housing is scarce. Canton's 06019 ZIP code has about 4,072 households, with 83.26% owner-occupied and 16.74% renter-occupied housing. Median household income in the same ZIP code is $117,418.
