Christopher Peak photo
The old Comcast building at 630 Chapel St.
Four years of legal disputes over the proposed development of the old Comcast service center on Chapel Street are just about over, paving the way for a busy Norwalk-based developer to convert the property into 200 luxury apartments.
On Thursday morning, city spokesperson Laurence Grotheer announced that Ron Caplan, the president of the Philadelphia-based PMC Property Group, Inc., has agreed to immediately withdraw two lawsuits that have long held up Norwalk’s Spinnaker Real Estate Partners from converting the building at 630 Chapel St. into 200 luxury apartments and groundfloor retail.
“I’m very pleased Mr. Caplan has agreed to permanently withdraw two lawsuits that impact New Haven,” Mayor Toni Harp is quoted as saying in Grotheer’s press release, “one involving Spinnaker Real Estate Partners’ market rate apartment project at the corner of Chapel and Olive Streets, and the other challenging the adequacy of the city’s sewer and storm water systems, administered by the City of New Haven and the Water Pollution Control Authority. These lawsuits have been expensive to defend and threatened to persist for years.”
Click here, here, and here for background on the development-delaying lawsuits.
“We got off on the wrong foot with New Haven a while ago,” Caplan is quoted as saying in the press release, “but I am delighted that Mayor Harp and I could reset our relationship and address some of our concerns. We are looking forward to remaining a great partner with the City, maintaining and improving our substantial investments in the City, and even looking at new development opportunities.”
Click here to download the full press release.
PMC owns the Strouse Adler “Smoothie” apartment building across the street from the Comcast site. It also owns the 900 Chapel St. office and apartment building, and the 254 College St. apartment building.
The press release also notes that the city will work with PMC to improve the ventilation system and waste management operations in the Chapel Square underground tunnel, enhancing the landscaping and site improvements at the Stroude Adler apartment building, and improve the streetscape around 900 Chapel St. building as part of a new agreement between the city and PMC.
“A formal cooperation agreement covering a variety of topics is being finalized between the City and PMC,” the press release ends. “It’s expected to be signed within the next few weeks.
Audubon Square Phases 2 + 3 Pass City Plan
Thomas Breen photo
Spinnaker VP Frank Caico at Wednesday night’s City Plan meeting.
Thursday morning’s press release isn’t the only good news that Spinnaker received from the city in the past 24 hours.
At Wednesday night’s regular monthly City Plan Commission meeting on the second floor of City Hall, commissioners unanimously approved site plans for Spinnaker’s proposed Phase 2 and Phase 3 developments at the Audubon Square complex on the old surface parking lot bounded by Grove Street, Orange Street, Audubon Street, and State Street.
Commissioners signed off on Spinnaker’s proposal to build 66 new residential units, a mix of studios, one-bedrooms, and two-bedrooms, in a townhouse-style building at 29 Audubon St., facing Audubon Street between Orange and State. They also signed off on Spinnaker’s plans to build 149 new residential units and 6,900 square-feet of first-floor retail in a new building at 335 Orange St., at the northeast corner of Orange and Grove.
Those two new proposed buildings will supplement the seven-story parking garage and 269 apartments of Audubon Square’s Phase 1, which is currently halfway done going up on Orange Street between Grove and Audubon. Spinnaker also received unanimous approval from the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) on Tuesday night for their proposed shared parking plan with Frontier.
Westville Alder and City Plan Commissioner Adam Marchand praised Spinnaker’s Audubon Square development for putting to productive use what has long been an empty surface parking lot for Frontier Communications employees.
“It was just a big sea of empty parking lots for a very long time,” Marchand said. “Let us hope that those units fill up.”
Spinnaker Vice President of Development Frank Caico said that Spinnaker will be opening a temporary leasing office in the old Zoi’s cafe space on Orange Street starting Jan. 2019. He said the company hopes to have Phase 1 construction done and tenants in Phase 1 apartments by mid-to-late Spring 2019.
He said the timeline for the construction of the Phase 2 and 3 developments will depend on how lease ups at the Phase 1 apartments go.
While work is moving apace on Phase 1 of Audubon Square, I think it is a stretch to say it is halfway done. The walls have not gone up on most the units. And work can't begin on the southern part of the site until the garage opens.