Fairfield office building preps to convert into apartments, a ‘bittersweet’ end for tenants
FAIRFIELD — A oncebustling center of business has slowly faded into empty office space on Katona Drive, and the few that remain will pack their bags to make way for apartments in the coming months.
The owner of the twostory building — the Naugatuck-based Katfield, LLC — applied to fill the property with 18 residential units and raise it by half a story to clear enough space for a mix of studio apartments and one- or two-bedroom units. But the plans will force out the businesses who still operate across the building's two floors, where occupants say they've seen the number of tenants fade over the years as remote work during the pandemic gutted traditional offices and stunted the growth of the commercial real estate field.
“Every office space was full,” Nic Cuoco, who owns Cuoco Structural Engineers — one of the businesses inside the office building — said of the building's former buzz circa 2006. “Every parking space was taken.”
Cuoco has been there ever since, but today paints a much different picture with a half-empty parking lot and locked doors guarding shuttered offices. He said quieter conditions set in after the pandemic, and with some space remaining vacant, he understands the push to replace offices with housing. His business plans to find a new space, closing the door on roughly 18 years of operation on Katona Drive.
“It's bittersweet because being here for so long, it's become somewhat of a second home for those working here,” he said.
The first floor directory of the property, dubbed the “Nutmeg Professional Building,” still holds eight name tags for businesses with over a handful more left empty. At least two offices remain open without a directory line, and the number of those who have already cleared out is unclear.
Tenants without written leases are expected to vacate before April 30, according to a letter to one of the occupying businesses earlier this month from attorney John Curran, who represents Katfield. Curran declined to share the number of current tenants in the building, and the landlord did not return a request for comment. Fallon said some lease agreements extending into 2025 could hold up the construction process, which can only start once all businesses have deserted their offices.
“The vacancy rates for commercial real estate in Fairfield County is very high, and this building is no exception,” said John Fallon, another attorney representing Katfield. “So I think it's just a lot of factors that implicate not just this building obviously but the whole commercial real estate market. And that's why you're seeing significant conversions like this where former office space is being converted to other uses, including residential, for which there really is a significant demand.”
The trend has gained traction in major U.S. cities in a push to revive their downtown neighborhoods, and empty office space has even caught the attention of President Joe Biden, who has encouraged cities and states to fill them with affordable housing. Fallon said Katfield decided to step in with a similar conversion project when office space demand lightened.
“It has been determined after significant investigation and consideration that residential use is highly preferable in that it will provide an appropriate transition between the commercial district of Black Rock Turnpike and nearby residential neighborhoods,” Fallon said in a statement to the zoning commission.
All plans hinge on Fairfield's Town Plan and Zoning Commission, which will hold a public hearing for the application, which Fallon hopes will happen no later than March.
Fallon said the residential building, if approved, would be comprised of four two-bedroom units, 12 one-bedroom units and two studios. He said two units would be designated as affordable, as required by the 10-percent affordability set-aside requirement in the town's zoning regulations.
He said the owner considered larger-scale affordable housing developments that would have resulted in 5.5-story plans with 40 units or a 4.5-story project totaling 32 units. Fallon said each would have been qualified under state statute 830g, which allows developers to override local zoning restrictions, but Katfield decided to pursue a less “intense” project.
The building proposal would fit within the building's current structure and involve “significant architectural enhancement,” according to Fallon's statement.
Due to a series of variances that the Zoning Board of Appeals approved in August, the building can become entirely residential instead of 50 percent, including residential space on the ground floor. Katfield requested 44 parking spaces for its plans, undercutting the 54 that would be required for an 18-unit building. Fairfield's zoning regulations allow developments to lower the number of parking spaces by up to 50 percent of the required total, which covers Katfield's requested reduction.
“The utilization of the property exclusively for residential use will have far less impact with regard to traffic and parking demands than the previous use,” Fallon said.
James Oliveri — an accountant who works in the Katona Drive building — said with a paper trail of plans dating back to August, tenants should have received direct notice sooner than January. Oliveri's lease is active for another year, and despite offering a high buyout with the hope of negotiating, Oliveri said he was told there was no interest from property management.
“If he had came to me in August, I would have been a little more receptive to it,” Oliveri said.
Oliveri plans to relocate when his lease expires but said Katfield could have hung onto its commercial tenants with greater investment into the building's condition.
But Diana Wadelton, a brand manager for another Katona Drive-based business in Effi Health, said due to the building's age, the likely change of use is no shock.
“I kind of understood because this is an older building, and if you look at all the other buildings on the block, this is definitely a more outdated one,” she said.