Thomas MacMillan Photo
A downtown landmark will have a new life as a 145-unit apartment building, thanks to zoning relief granted this week.
The landmark is the Union and New Haven Trust Building at the corner of Church and Elm streets.
The Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) Tuesday evening gave final approval to several zoning variances requested by the building’s owner, New York’s Cooper Square Realty.
Cooper Square intends to convert the former office building into apartments. To do so, it sought and received zoning variances from open space and parking.
Instead of the 145 parking spaces otherwise required, the building will have only 100 parking spaces, spread over three parking lots between 300 and 1,000 feet from the building.
As a condition of approval, the BZA mandated that the building have on-site parking for 45 bikes.
Renovation is estimated to take 15 months.
How does this affect the taxation of the building? Does the sale trigger a reval under comparables? Will the renovated property be reval'd according to construction cost? Since constructed parking would have been taxed, and the variance allows remote parking has the city struck a deal to regain that lost tax revenue or is this just seem as an investment in a more livable city with less urban space devoted to parking