Architect: Apartments to ‘exude high quality’
Developer makes case to board for Newtown apartments
NEWTOWN — If any single stretch exudes Newtown’s New England charm and historical architecture, it’s the stretch of Main Street that runs from the iconic flag pole south past blocks of Colonial and Victorian homes.
So it’s with special attention that Newtown leaders are weighing a proposal by a Brookfield architect to construct a three-story building with 27 apartments at South Main Street and Borough Lane.
At a recent review of the blueprints by the town’s Design Advisory Board, the developer was grilled over details ranging from roof pitches, color palettes and siding materials to his overall design inspiration.
“The building is right on Main Street,” said board member Agni Kyprianou at a meeting in late November. “That’s why we are bringing up these details.”
Board member Peter Cloudas agreed: “There is no other portion of town that has as much historical and architectural diversity,” he said.
The developer Robert Sherwood said he understood and agreed, noting that his designs are focused on giving the apartment building residential features “so it doesn’t look like a big box” and varying building materials “so that it doesn’t look like one big, massive structure.”
“I want the building to exude high quality,” Sherwood said during a Nov. 22 meeting.
First, Sherwood will need approvals from the town’s land use board.
A public hearing about Sherwood’s proposal is scheduled for Thursday before Newtown’s Planning
and Zoning Commission.
Plans call for a threestory building, 39 feet high, that along with parking would cover 70 percent of a 1.6-acre residential lot. Sherwood would demolish the home, the detached garage and the collapsed barn on the property and screen the new building with “heavy landscape buffering.”
Among the proposed design elements are angled roof pitches, a cupola and “a mix of hardy plank, vertical plank and some shake (siding) to break up the look.”
Five of the 27 apartments will be affordable units, Sherwood said.
Among the approvals Sherwood seeks is a new zone “to permit the adaptive reuse of existing underutilized properties along South Main Street and promote businesses that support the character of Newtown.”
The property in question, which is across the street from the former Amaral Motors dealership, is the last residential lot before a string of commercial uses going south, including a fabric store, a strip mall, a restaurant and a Walgreens Pharmacy.
As such, the developer is tasked with creating a transitional design from residential to commercial, review board members said.
“The adjacent buildings like the strip mall, Walgreens and the service center across the street all kind of bring down the architecture in the area, which gives (you) some wiggle room,” Cloudas said at the November meeting.