Sale of land for retail, apartments approved

SHELTON — Another Canal Street property is officially off the market.

The Board of Aldermen, at a special meeting Thursday, approved the city’s sale of properties listed as 113 and 123 Canal St. — land which housed Samarius and Axon Cross at times in the past — to Riverview Park Royal, LLC, owned by John Guedes and Biagio Barone, for $700,000.

As part of the approval, the city agreed to complete the remediation of the site and also took back the easement on which the Riverwalk will be built.

Last June, the Planning and Zoning Commission approved Guedes’ plan to construct a five-story building, dubbed Riverview Park Royal, with retail and apartments on what is now vacant land next to Veterans Memorial Park.

The building will have 11,000 square feet of retail or commercial space and 92 apartments, with, according to the commission’s resolution, no less than nine units set aside as affordable under state statute 8-30g, the state’s affordable housing law.

Overall, there would be 28 studio apartments, 16 one-bedrooms, 44 twobedrooms and four threebedroom apartments.

There will be 205 on-site parking spaces, with one designated for each apartment.

The site, tucked between the railroad tracks and Veterans Memorial Park, consists of 2.57 acres and was originally part of the former industrial development along Canal Street. It is now owned by the city.

It is a former brownfields parcel, essentially remediated, save for additional excavation necessary to accommodate the development.

The city has owned the property for years after seizing it following the previous owner’s failure to pay back taxes. Guedes and his partner, Biaggio

Barone, have a contract to purchase the land from the city.

The deal also includes Guedes covering the cost of extending the River Walk from Veterans Memorial Park, along the river and ending at Canal Street East.

The city received $400,000 in cleanup grants from the EPA Brownfields Program in 2008 for sites at 113 and 123 Canal St.

The property at 113 Canal St. is the former Axton Cross parcel, which was originally occupied by a bolts manufacturer and later by a chemical manufacturer that mixed powdered metals, cleaners and liquid acids. Contaminants on the site included metals and volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds.

At 123 Canal St. is the former Samarius parcel. From the late 1800s to 1985, the Samarius site was occupied by a variety of industrial enterprises, including brass, silver goods and textile manufacturers.