MCCA image
A rendering of the rehab clinic that could be at 215 Whalley...
Nora Grace-Flood photo
...vs. what's there now: An abandoned CVS.
The planned conversion of a former CVS pharmacy on Whalley Avenue into an abstinence-focused drug rehab clinic moved ahead, as the project’s backers seek approval to keep using an adjacent fenced-off asphalt lot for surface parking.
Leadership of the Midwestern Connecticut Council of Alcoholism, or MCCA, broached that idea during a public hearing before the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) Tuesday night. The group’s parking-related zoning-relief application now heads to the City Plan Commission for relief before heading back to the BZA for a final vote.
If the nonprofit, which purchased the ex-CVS property last September for $2.5 million, gets the proper parking relief, then the vacant former pharmacy building at 215 Whalley Ave. will see new life as a clinic offering group therapy and psychiatric care to individuals recovering from substance abuse. While medication may be prescribed on scene, it will not be dispensed at the site, according to MCCA’s CEO, John D’Eramo.
Read more about the motivation behind the project in detail here.
The fenced-off and graffiti-sprayed CVS...
... and fenced-off parking lot.
D’Eramo was joined by Attorney Carolyn Kone Tuesday at the online BZA meeting in requesting “special exceptions to allow for transition parking and off-street parking spaces to be located within the required front yard setback.”
In other words, MCCA is seeking to keep the parking lot located to the south of the property as parking.
They need a special exception to maintain 56 parking spaces on the site because half of the lot is zoned as residential while the other half is part of the Community Gateway District, a specially zoned area dedicated to promoting mixed-use development along Whalley Avenue.
The BZA has previously granted similar variances to past applicants, including a car dealership looking to expand its business back in the ‘90s and to CVS in 2001, according to the developer’s application.
D’Eramo said that if and once zoning relief is granted, MCCA will go before the City Plan Commission for site plan review before hopefully opening doors to a new clinic this coming fall.
Those 56 parking spaces, he said, would be essential to accommodate 17 to 20 staff members and clientele on “high-volume” days.
The ex-CVS site would replace the nonprofit’s current clinic at 419 Whalley Ave., which MCCA has rented for about 10 years. D’Eramo said that MCCA chose to move sites because they wanted to own the facility out of which they work. There is no intention, he noted, to expand services at the upcoming clinic; both 215 and 419 Whalley are around 10,000 square feet and daily hours will remain consistent at the new location.
“Right now it’s just a big open shell,” D’Eramo said of the CVS. “All the shelving and cash registers were removed prior to the purchase. We have to do a full build out, which will include constructing offices for counselors and group rooms.”
Kone said that the footprint of the site will stay the same, with little serious external construction. The plan is “basically to spruce it up,” she said of the development.
MCCA's Scott Nelson, Steve Palma, D'Eramo, and Glenn Connan during a community management team meeting held in October.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Crystal Gooding, the chair of the Dixwell Community Management Team, said that she left a recent public meeting with the developers “a little concerned” about the placement of the facility.
She said she had noticed both a liquor store and a daycare nearby the potential clinic. Would those three uses be appropriate neighbors?
“It’s important that there’s a liquor store right next to the facility,” Kone responded, “so clients can realize those temptations are right there, front and center.”
D’Eramo agreed: “Supportive therapy is to help people learn how to cope with triggers. No matter where you go, if you’re grocery shopping, you go down the beer aisle, there’s always gonna be triggers that you face in your life.”
The liquor store would be a crucial test for clients, they maintained, while the daycare would go undisturbed by the new development. The clinic would primarily be a site for therapy and counseling, D’Eramo and Kone said, and lot relief would preclude Whalley Avenue from further traffic flooding by street-parked cars.
“In terms of parking, we believe that CVS was a much more intensive use of that parking lot than our use will be,” D’Eramo concluded.
Local land use attorney Ben Trachten spoke out in support of the zoning relief as a member of the public during Tuesday’s meeting.
“At its core, this is a minor parking issue … This board has liberally granted these kinds of requests in the past.”
"We have to do a full build out, which will include constructing officers for counselors and group rooms." Most of which, I guess, will be windowless, unless they punch out a lot of new windows in the building, which it doesn't sound like they will.
Even then, partitioning up a big square building like that one, with no courtyard in the center, means that many of the rooms will be windowless. That's a shame. Windows contribute a lot to mental health.