Norwalk: Development Developments Open Thread

by turfgrrl

May 11th, 2008 · 17 Comments

Tags: Norwalk

17 Responses so far ↓ “Norwalk: Development Developments Open Thread”

• 1 barnstorm // May 11, 2008 at 9:43 pm

  Yes Mr Mayor. We know you wish the wood would rot just a little faster at 93 East Avenue, but don’t worry. It looks like someone has been going in there to “move that project along”.

• 2 anonymous // May 12, 2008 at 5:47 am

  He’s not the only one. Rotting faster, lightning strike, tornado. Whatever. Just take that eyesore down.

• 3 Anon // May 12, 2008 at 8:18 am

  You think that’s an eyesore. Wait until the Norwalk Inn adds the Dry-Vit covered Budget8 wing in its place. Now, won;t that be a nce addition to the Green.

• 4 Lindsay // May 12, 2008 at 10:12 am

  I actually think thats a beautiful house. Too bad it was run into the ground..as much as I would personally love to see it restored I think it is probably past the point of no return.

• 5 anon // May 12, 2008 at 10:35 am

  In turth, that house is a tough old bird. The porch may be gone but that would have to be removed and replaced for any rehab anyway. When the State’s structural engineer went through it a year ago, he found it all structurally sound. Handrinos will not let the State in now — but I’ll bet it is still solid (much to his dismay). It would, of course, have to be a gut rehab. Too bad. Before Handrinos got his hands on it, it still had great woodwork, marble fireplaces, and crystal chandeliers. I’m sure those have all been destroyed.

• 6 Anonymous // May 12, 2008 at 11:06 am

  Aside from the intentional damage inflicted on the outside, my understanding is that Handrinos left the water on during the winter, leading to a burst pipe that flooded the house as well.

• 7 Lindsay // May 12, 2008 at 1:07 pm

  What a shame..so what does the owner expect to do with it now?

• 8 nwlknative // May 12, 2008 at 2:32 pm

  I wish one of these “93 East Avenue Preservationists” would buy the house and move it to across the street from City Hall. A perfect lot for the house. Then the Norwalk Inn could be expanded, we wouldn’t have to look at an eyesore and everyone would be happy. I, for one, am tired of hearing about it and looking at it. There are so many other areas of town that also need our attention, not the least the West Avenue corridor. Is that ever going to be started? We have been hearing about redevelopment since the flood hit in 1955 - but nothing gets done. It seems people are very good at flattening out property, but not so good at rebuilding. I have seen plans, artistic renderings, traffic reports, environmental reports, economic reports, feasibility studies, zoning changes and yet nothing built. I agree with the mayor - I hope they break ground in my lifetime! In the meantime, roads are dug up all over the place with metal plates taking the place of pavement - Connecticut Avenue, Westport Avenue, North Avenue, New Canaan Avenue, West Avenue, etc. What a mess we have on our hands. This Northeast Utilities project is taking far too long and is disrupting too many areas at once. Then we have the sewer project digging up streets and detouring traffic. Sometimes I feel the town is one big destruction site.

• 9 anonymous // May 12, 2008 at 3:07 pm

  Nwlknative- I’m with you. If you don’t want it torn down or neglected, buy it.

• 10 Anon // May 12, 2008 at 3:18 pm

  I can’t understand why people would not demand the current owner to act responsibly and maintain his property. It’s not perservationists who have created an eyesore; it’s Handrinos. Now Handrinos has to step up to the plate and abide by the court decision. Or doesn’t the law apply to him?

• 11 anonymous // May 12, 2008 at 4:23 pm

  Anon-because most people either don’t care or agree with him. Americans don’t like government telling them what they can or cannot do. They disagree with flagrant abuse of eminent domain or infringement of unnecessary infringement on proprty rights. People like to see others take a stand against something being shoved down their throat.

• 12 Anonymous // May 12, 2008 at 4:48 pm

  Hey! I like Scott Merrill’s approach. I don’t like government telling me what to do, so I’m going to ignore the zoning laws in my neighborhood when I build my house. Don’ need no esteenkin’ activist municipal lawmakers, man…

• 13 Anonymous // May 12, 2008 at 5:15 pm

  Handrinos has his head so far up Moccia’s ass that every time the Mayor opens his mouth, he can’t figure out if he’s seeing the light at the end of the tunnel or the train coming at him.

• 14 old timer // May 12, 2008 at 5:47 pm

  Scot Merrell needs to pick his battles more carefully. This tax collector is nobody to mess around with. She will auction off his property, if he doesn’t pay up before the auction. The meter is running and every day he waits cost money. I’m not smart enough to even think of being a governor, but I’m too smart to tangle with the tax collector. She’s never been defeated.
  By the way, isn’t church property exempt from taxes.? I see some church properties on the list in the Hour. Must be some taxable properties owned by the churches, not the churches themselves.

• 15 anonymous // May 12, 2008 at 6:02 pm

  The government should not be in the business of interfering with a man’s wishes to expand his business as long as it does not physically encroach on the property of another. The Great Ronald Reagan once said that there are only two legitimate reasons for government, national security and public order. Too bad many of our local politicians don’t understand this wisdom.

• 16 Anonymous // May 12, 2008 at 11:26 pm

  I just found Powerset for the first time.Brought up Norwalk and found it has a nice page for the city.I’m probably slow in finding this site but I was impressed with its search engine and the way you can surf and find interesting stuff.

  G

• 17 Anonymous // May 14, 2008 at 8:32 am

  From the Fairfield County Weekly. Let’s hope this developer stays away from Norwalk. What is it with smart development in Fairfield County? Why is it so hard to do?

  Rush to Revitalize Redux
  What is there to make of Urban Green Builders’ efforts in Downtown Bridgeport?

  Thursday, May 15, 2008
  By Nick Keppler

  Seven liens filed this year against Urban Green total more than $800,000

  The most tantalizing [food rumor] we’ve heard is of plans for a rooftop beer garden underneath and adjacent to the gorgeous glass dome of the Arcade. Whose fancy was struck by visions of burritos and beer under BeePo’s celestial dome? None other than the founders of Fat Cat Pie Company, whose venture into the Citytrust building is wending its way through the city’s permit process. Once that spectacular dining room is open, watch for other dreams to materialize.
  —Fairfield County Weekly, “Pie in the Sky Over BeePo,” Dec. 27, 2007.

  “I don’t have anything to do with it anymore,” Anthony Ancona, of Fat Cat Pie Company, said last week about Citytrust and its owners-developers Urban Green Builders. “I haven’t talked to them in months. I’m part Sicilian, so I can’t say they’re dead to me but what’s there to say. ‘You wasted my time and my life and my money?’”

  Fat Cat, co-managed by Ancona, is a successful Norwalk pizzeria and wine bar, and its Bridgeport outpost was supposed to spearhead the business end of Urban Green’s efforts to revitalize Downtown. The New York-based, eco-friendly company has renovated and is renting out apartments in two “mixed-use” residence/retail buildings, Citytrust and Golden Hill, and is currently at work on the retail mall, the Arcade. Early on, it recruited Ancona, who had previously pursued a space in the neighboring Read’s Building, and he seemed totally committed, moving into an apartment in Citytrust with his wife and dedicating, he says, $100,000 worth of equipment to opening a Fat Cat in Bridgeport.

  But in March, Ancona and his spouse abruptly moved out and pulled the plug on the restaurant. He says the money he spent went to “education, my education; it’s in a lessons-learned fund.” He says no progress was being made in renovating space for the restaurant, which was once slated to open in summer of ’06.

  “It is a shame,” says Georgia Day, owner of Rainy Faye bookstore which was on Broad Street and now is closed and awaiting its own space in Citytrust. “He was going to serve breakfast and I was going to have newspapers, and we were going to make a thing out of it.”

  In January, the Weekly spoke to residents of Citytrust (“Rush to Revitalize?” Jan. 24) about what many saw as a lack of progress and substandard conditions in the building (see sidebar for an update). Now with Fat Cat aborting its Bridgeport spot, Rainy Faye in indefinite suspension and a third business, the luncheon and gift shop Flowers and Flour on Broad, forced into a relocation, new questions have been raised. After a period of hope and promise, are Urban Green and the city that extended its hand to the company slouching on business development? Is that situation going to improve, and if so, when? Why are three good businesses that want to be open in Downtown Bridgeport—as of now—not there?
  And why are they reportedly not paying several local contractors who worked on their buildings?

  *

  The first people affected by Urban Green Builders were the store owners in the complexes that the city took over by eminent domain in 2005 to pave the way for the company, which had renovated old buildings in the Bronx, Harlem and elsewhere.
  The building on Broad Street across from the City Hall Annex had four storefronts that Josh Grant, then owner of the restaurant Soul to Soul, says were always under the threat of demolishment or foreclosure due to tax trouble.

  When the city put Urban Green in charge, Grant says he arranged a meeting with the company’s owner, Eric Anderson—his new landlord—at which Anderson explained that the building would be demolished after “phase five” of the company’s Bridgeport redevelopment project. He also said that ground would not be broken on the new buildings for another five to seven years.

  So the store owners at Broad Street went from the ever-present threat of forced closure to the promise of safety until 2010. The space was now important and the new landlords seemed kind and understanding. Grant says that Urban Green forgave three months of late rent before Soul to Soul shut down due to low revenue. “I kept waiting for the revitalization to kick in,” says Grant. “It didn’t in time for me.” Howard Gardner, who owned neighboring Circle Cleaners, says that he was allowed to let six months slide before he too closed his doors on Broad.

  Things worked out slightly differently for Miriam Parsons, owner of Flowers and Flour since 2000.
  “When [Anderson] first came in we saw him as a knight in shining armor, after all those years of getting broken into,” says Parsons.

  Parsons, unlike her neighbors, had something Urban Green wanted: a back room with a door that opened onto Bank Street that would be useful as a leasing office. So they created a sublease to lease a part of a building they already owned. “But in this sublease they did not put all the details,” says Parsons. “Plus I was paying month to month. There was no contract with me that you could sublease from.”

  Nonetheless, Urban Green painted the room their signature lime color and moved their leasing agents into it. They also put a dead bolt on the door, blocking Parsons from her electric meter and bathroom. “I work in food service” she says. “I need to have a bathroom.” She says Urban Green told her she would have to use the one in Lafayette Hairstyles, next door (whose owner said he had experienced no trouble with Urban Green).

  City building inspectors also had a problem with this arrangement and a notice, dated July, 13, 2007, says that the “tenant must have access to circuit breaker 24 hours a day” and must also be able to get into the rest-room.
  Parsons says she got an energy bill that summer, which included the wattage used by the leasing office. “They never separated the meters like they said they would.”

  While trying to negotiate with Urban Green about the bill and while she was in the hospital recovering from surgery to remove a cancerous growth on her intestines, she fell behind two weeks in rent, and got an eviction notice.

  “I think they are retaliating against me because I complained about the electric,” she says. “They forgave [other stores] for several months of late rent but they tried to kick me out after two weeks, and I can’t think of any other reason.”

  The city office of economic development found a place for Flowers and Flour in the Read’s building. Ed Lavernoich, deputy director of economic development, says, “In my years of economic development, there have been many disputes between tenants and landlords that have to do with differences in styles and goals and when a company takes on millions in obligations, they have a right to determine who is a good fit and who isn’t.” He adds that, “The new guys, in this case, are major operators in town; this was one small business.”

  When asked if this view was a tad pro-Goliath and anti-David, Lavernoich retorts, “I resent the implication that we don’t care about small businesses. We said we’d find a space for her, and we did.”

  The move-in date was continually pushed back and Parsons spent several months negotiating with Urban Green to extend her stay—something that Lavernoich says shows the owners did not come down on her too hard.

  Parsons wanted to take her landlord to court but her lawyer told her that there would need to be two cases: one in housing court to fight the eviction and one in civil court to dispute the electric bill.

  “I had a savings account of $7,500 for me and the two little guys,” says Parsons, of her grandson and a foster child. “I lost it all.”
  She is slated to move out on Friday and the space in Read’s isn’t ready. A final bill from Urban Green charges her more than $200 to pay the company’s lawyers, Hirsh and Levy, to help evict her.

  Another shop whose lights are out on Broad Street is Rainy Faye, the bookstore on the next block. Owner Georgia Day wants it known up front that she is not complaining about Urban Green, though she’s “getting a little nervous about the future of the store,” as its stock is now in storage and she’s waiting the city permit office to authorize and Urban Green to renovate her designated space in Citytrust.

  “A lot of it was me,” she says of the delay “I couldn’t do this until then.” She adds, “The economy is slow for a lot of people right now.”

  A constant winner for Best Independent Bookstore in the Weekly’s annual readers’ poll, Rainy Faye is arguably an exemplary model for redevelopment. Day, who works for Fairfield University’s administrative department, found a niche that was missing and filled it, opening a bookstore tailored to Bridgeport’s diverse tastes, one that hosted an art gallery and poetry workshops.

  She says she had help. “When I told [landlord and developer] Phil Kuchma I needed a door, he was there the next day,” she says. “Whatever I needed, Kuchma was there or at least he’d answer the phone and get right back to me. Sometimes it can be frustrating because [Urban Green] is in New York. I call and say, ‘When is this going to be ready?’ And I don’t know when they’ll get back to me.” Still she says, “Once it opens, I see it as an expansion and a wonderful opportunity for my store.”

  “When we opened [in Norwalk], it was the same situation,” says Anthony Ancona, of Fat Cat. “There was a bunch of beat-up buildings that were going to get demolished.” The current location on Wall Street is now surrounded by yoga studios, boutiques, small shops and Fat Cat Joe’s, a café under Ancona’s care. He also helps run Fountainhead, a wine distributor a few miles away, on Winfield Street. “I’m not taking total responsibility but we helped revive it,” he says of his neck of East Norwalk.

  Ancona says when he expressed interest in opening in Bridgeport four years ago, “I didn’t think this would be easy when I started, but I don’t do things because they are easy.” A native of Brooklyn, he says he was attracted to the diversity and potential of Bridgeport, and Urban Green seemed like ideal bedfellows.

  “I was their biggest cheerleader,” he says. “I wanted to believe in green energy, the people of Bridgeport, and the city government.” He lived in Citytrust for a year and a half. “I’d go downstairs every morning and look at the progress,” he said. “There wasn’t any.” Delayed, red-taped and frustrated, he moved back to Norwalk and pulled out of Citytrust.

  Since announcing his departure from Bridgeport, Ancona says he’s had as many as “20 developers call and ask if I would be interested in opening in Stamford or Greenwich or some place. I’ve had to tell them, ‘Dude, that just isn’t my thing,’” he says. “I like to go where I’m needed. I’ve run a pizza place for no target market that’s just for everybody and that’s how I want to continue.”

  Ancona partially blames city regulations and the difficulty of renovating an old space but says, “I think if [Eric Anderson] had the money, I’d be open by now.”

  The Weekly found seven liens filed this year in City Hall attempting to collect money contractors say that Urban Green owes them. Of the six that were on file (the newest one, from May 1, was not in the records), three were for over $100,000: $320,026 claimed by Shelton’s Lindark Contracting, $262,809 by Norwalk’s Meza Electric, and $184,348 by the Shelton branch of Otis Elevators (headquartered in Farmington). Combined the sum of the six is more than $800,000.

  When pressed about the above matters, Urban Green Builders released a statement through Madden: “Urban Green Builders and GDC are committed to creating an important mixed-use project in downtown Bridgeport that will contribute to the city’s exciting rebirth. This historic project has presented us with some unique challenges that have proven to be highly complex and time consuming. However, we are focused on completing the project as quickly as possible and we will continue to work closely with city and state officials, the business community and other stakeholders as we move forward.”

  Lavernoich echoes the difficulty of the project. “Things are going much slower than anyone would like. There is no doubt [Urban Green has] been hurt badly by cost overruns and delays, but that block is much better than it was three years ago.”
  ”When we went into this we didn’t think it’d be easy,” says Lavernoich, eerily echoing Ancona. “We knew it would be hard.”

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