After nearly two decades, Manchester Parkade redevelopment begins. 'It's been a long time.'

Construction has begun at Manchester's former Broad Street Parkade site, turning a long-delayed redevelopment plan into an active building project after nearly two decades of planning, setbacks and legal disputes.

Silk City Commons is an $80 million mixed-use development by Texas-based Anthony Properties. The project will add 232 apartments and 13,000 square feet of commercial pad-site space on the 21.6-acre site along Broad Street.

Town Manager Steve Stephanou called the groundbreaking a "tremendous day" and said it had been "a long time." For Manchester, the start of construction marks a visible step forward in a corridor the town has been trying to revive since the late 2000s.

A long road to construction

Manchester began formal planning for Broad Street revitalization and Parkade redevelopment in 2008. The town bought the blighted strip mall site in 2011 and demolished it in 2012, but the property then sat through years of stalled redevelopment efforts.

A prior redevelopment contract with Live Work Learn Play lapsed before construction began. A later agreement with Manchester Parkade I LLC was declared void in 2022, and the town later settled a related lawsuit for $2 million in 2023.

Those setbacks left the former Parkade property vacant for years while town officials kept trying to move a new plan forward.

What is being built

The approved layout covers five Broad Street properties: 296, 324, 330, 334 and 340 Broad St. The residential portion includes 96 two-bedroom units, 88 one-bedroom units and 48 studios.

The plan calls for four 48-unit buildings and four 10-unit buildings. Apartments will be accessed from Green Manor Boulevard, while the commercial pad sites will front Broad Street.

Manchester approved the site plan in December 2025. In May 2026, the town completed the $3.6 million land sale to Anthony Properties.

The developer says the apartments will be rented at market rate and leased as they are completed, allowing occupancy to begin in phases as buildings finish.

Why it matters

The Parkade site has been one of Manchester's long-running downtown redevelopment priorities, and the project is meant to support broader efforts to strengthen the Broad Street corridor.

Officials have framed the redevelopment as both a housing project and a test of whether the town can finally deliver a major downtown site after multiple failed deals. The addition of 232 apartments also brings a meaningful amount of new housing to the market.

The commercial pad sites are another piece of that strategy. Town and project materials indicate they are expected to be marketed later as future development opportunities.

What's next

Anthony Properties expects the project to take about two years to complete. Construction will continue over that period, with leasing starting as individual apartment buildings are completed.

That phased approach means the project will not arrive all at once, but the start of construction makes the redevelopment materially different from the many years when the Parkade site remained a vacant symbol of unfinished plans.

For Manchester, the question now is execution: whether the project can move through construction on schedule and deliver the housing and redevelopment momentum the town has sought for years.

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