Thomas MacMillan Photo
Six months after his plan to revamp the old Star Supply warehouse was squashed, developer Ben Gross has returned with a new partner and a new vision for the crumbling State Street building, this time with fewer apartments, more parking — and neighborhood support.
Gross said he hopes his latest development proposal will fare better than his first, which the Board of Zoning Appeals rejected in April (BZA), amid neighborhood outcry about parking and gentrification. Many officials and advocates of denser urban development saw the plan’s failure as a lost opportunity for needed new tax revenue and housing.
Gross is again trying to convert the abandoned Star Supply property (pictured above) at the corner of State, Lawrence and Mechanic streets at the edge of East Rock’s Goatville section into a mixed-use development with retail space, rowhouses and one‑, two‑, and three-bedroom apartments.
This time around, Gross is starting the process by meeting with neighbors before he submits a proposal to the city for approval. Saturday he showed up at a public meeting at East Rock School along with his business new partner.
Gross (pictured), a Yale law school grad, has teamed up with Andy Montelli of Post Road Residential Inc. Montelli was the point person for Fairfield Residential when that company wanted to develop Star Supply in 2008. Since then, Montelli has started his own development company and is now back for another try at Star Supply.
“Andy has a ton of experience developing multifamily residential housing,” said Gross. “We’re really excited about bringing him on because it’s going to give the project the experience it needs.”
“We showed a new plan which we thought was very responsive to what we heard from the neighborhood last time around,” Gross said. “It was pretty well received.”
The new plan preserves the historic building at State and Lawrence (pictured). The building would be restored and converted into retail space, Gross said.
“We’ve added a significant amount of parking,” he said. “We think we’re going to have about 269 spaces.” Last time, the plan called for fewer than 200 spaces. His original plan fit in with the perspective of new-urbanism advocates in town who want to see zoning changes allowing for new developments with less parking. (Read about that debate here. Click here to read over 100 reader comments on the broader debate surrounding Gross’s last plan.)
Along with more parking, Gross envisions fewer apartments than in his previous plan. The current proposal is for 210 to 225 units, Gross said. Of those, 40 percent would be two- or three-bedroom apartments, the rest studios and one-bedrooms.
The housing on Mechanic Street would be rowhouses, not “townhouses” as previously proposed. They would rise to three stories, maximum.
Overall, the height of the development would come down from seven stories in the original plan to no more than five stories, Gross said. The highest buildings would be in the back, away from Lawrence and Mechanic streets and near the skating rink. The lowest level there would be parking, with four stories of apartments above.
The new design comes from Beinfield Architecture, a Norwalk firm with “experience in adaptive reuse all over New England,” Gross said.
“We’re hoping for a mid-November submission to the BZA,” he said.
Gross said it’s too early to say how much it would cost.
“The new plan looks really good,” said Stefanie Lapetina (pictured), a Mechanic Street neighbor who had opposed the first plan.
“They took down the scale a little bit,” she said. The rowhouses would fit better on Mechanic Street and the parking would be more appropriate, she said. “They addressed pretty much all the issues we had with the last design.”
“I think the feedback was mainly very positive,” she said of Saturday’s meeting. Neighbors had questions about logistics and construction, but no serious grievances, Lapetina said.
“Ben was just very careful with picking partners who seem to understand the neighborhood,” she said. “I’m hoping this all works out.”
She said she hopes the new project will bring other perks, like new sidewalks and improved transportation to the train station.
“People felt that the proposal seems much more livable,” reported neighborhood Alderwoman Jessica Holmes (pictured).
“It’s been a learning experience,” Holmes said of the neighborhood’s evolving relationship with Gross and his plans. After the BZA rejected the plan in April, Holmes and neighbors were criticized for preventing a positive tax-boosting development and keeping Star Supply as a crumbling eyesore. Holmes said she heard comments like “Jessica Holmes loves blight.”
Holmes said that all along she wanted a project that fits with the neighborhood and takes neighbors’ needs into account. The site is three acres, which is “huge for this neighborhood.”
“I feel much better about the process this time around,” she said. “I’m as happy as anyone that they’re resubmitting.”
“We were never really opposed to having anything built there,” said Lapetina. “We just want it to be tied into the neighborhood.”
“I think it’s been a really good example of a dialogue between us and our neighbors being really productive,” said Gross. “I have a personal connection with the neighborhood and the site, having lived for four years right near it. Even after the BZA last year, I couldn’t really let it go. I thought it was possible to come up with a plan that would work for everyone, and the neighborhood folks really encouraged us to come back.”
Great to see Gross back with a new plan after being rebuffed by the neighborhood. I still think the protests were a little loud regarding the last plan, but it sounds like he thought about what needed to be done and has some back with a very reasonable proposal. If the residents continue to throw a fit about this, then I don't know what can make them happy.