Architect Patrick Pinnell produced a design in Simsbury,

Architect Patrick Pinnell produced a design in Simsbury, Connecticut, that aims to fit a 128,000 sq. ft. store into a walkable, mixed-use setting — one that would feature streets with housing over retail, live-work units, and a traffic roundabout. If the 60-acre development, River Oaks, is approved and built, it would include restaurants, offices, stores, green spaces, and 350 housing units, some of them owner-occupied, others for rent. Pinnell says the project, by Konover Development Corp., would have the advantage of connecting — via a 10-minute walk on the Farmington Canal Greenway trail — to insurance office complexes where thousands of people work. Situated on an important road, Rt. 10, it could be a center for its section of the northwest Hartford suburb. To tame traffic, the entrance would be an elongated roundabout, next to a central square. Parking lots along the central axis (which points toward the 165-foot, 1914-vintage Heublein Tower in Talcott Mountain State Park) would have trees enclosing them block by block. “Eventually those should be replaced block by block by buildings lining internal parking, once the project gets successful enough to pay for structured parking,” Pinnell says. A group called SHARE (Simsbury Homeowners Advocating Responsible Expansion) sprang into existence to fight the development, seeing it as an invitation to traffic and sprawl. The proposal requires rezoning the site from industrial use, and is being debated before town boards. “It’s actually strategic infill, or I would not have taken the job,” Pinnell says, noting that Simsbury has been trying for several years to get planning established for TND. Columnist Tom Condon wrote in The Hartford Courant, “Love it or hate it, River Oaks is at least compact and organized.”