New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Decision on Main Street apartments delayed
ANSONIA — The future of two Main Street buildings has been put on hold for a month while designers work on architectural, landscaping and trash management plans for what would be the first downtown housing project in the area in years.
The Planning and Zoning Commission tabled the project until May 20 after hearing from two residents and four aldermen at a public hearing on renovations to the former four-story medical office building at 158 Main St. and the three-story former Glazer’s Appliance and furniture store at 200 Main St.
Both are owned by Tonino Mavuli and his family.
“This is a very important project at a very critical period of time in Ansonia,” said city Economic Development Director Sheila O’Malley. “The downtown area has languished for many years. Right now, I would say it’s flourishing. What we really need are permanent residents living, shopping and eating in the downtown.”
The Maulvis said they hope to convert the upper two floors of office space at 158 Main to 14 apartments: four studios, two one-bedroom and one two-bedroom on each floor. At 200 Main, the plan is to build 19 apartments, 13 of them studios on the upper floors.
The renovations would mean the commercial tenants on those floors — Michael Marcinek’s Fletcher Thompson, an architectural and engineering firm; Greg Stamos, a lawyer; TomWatt, a fundraising sales firm; BHcare, a nonprofit health care firm; and the Valley Independent Sentinel — would move to lower floors.
Marcinek said he did not believe the month’s delay would affect plans to have the apartments ready in December once they get their approvals.
“We can start on the commercial space now since it does not require approval just the necessary permits,” he said. “That’s the basement area and first floor on 200 Main St. and the first and second floors on 158 Main St.
“If they the approve the apartments in May, and we get the necessary permits, we could probably start on those in June,” he said.
Supporters of the plan, which included four aldermen, said the renovations would bring residents and traffic downtown; Bart Flaherty, a former Planning and Zoning chairman, said the city could attract millennials.
Flaherty also said the downtown needed more open space to be attractive to future residents. He told the commission it should retain Olson Drive, where public housing apartments were demolished, as open space.
Jared Heon, chairman of the Planning and Zoning Commission, said the city Housing Authority is waiting for a ruling from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which owns the Olson Drive property.
Previously, HUD suggested building affordable housing in the form of townhouses on the site.
“Planning and Zoning would like it to remain open space,” Heon said.