SOUTHINGTON — Three houses on a private road off Eden Avenue have been demolished to make way for luxury townhouses and condominiums.
Although the town originally approved local developer Mark Lovley’s request to build on the site of about 3 acres west of Main Street, he sold the project to New Jersey-based Diversified Realty Advisors. That company almost bought the Greenway Commons project.
According to the town’s building department, M & O Construction Co. of New Milford received demolition permits for the houses on Sept. 18 and started work around that time.
A call to Diversfied was not returned Tuesday. It’s unclear when construction on the condos and townhouses may begin.
One of the homes demolished was occupied by Alphonse and Marie Forgione, who had it moved from Main Street in the 1950s. Alphonse Forgione died in 1972 and Marie Forgione died in 2016.
Two years ago, when plans for the condos were being discussed, Marie Forgione said she’d consider living in them but regretted the destruction of her house. The front door was flanked by elaborate pillars and just below the roof there were ornamental carvings. The interior had detailed woodwork around the windows, doors and stairwell.
While Lovley sold the Forgione properties, he and partner Anthony Valenti, a real estate broker from Newington, recently bought adjacent buildings on Main Street from the Forgione family. Lovley and Valenti purchased the properties at 200 Main St. for $1.325 million and 164 Main St. for $175,000 from the Forgione Corp.
Lovley said he’ll be making improvements to the buildings, whose tenants include a Dollar Tree store, Domino’s Pizza, Hong Kong Kitchen and Pizza House. The purchase of those buildings wasn’t connected to the condo deal.
The site plan approval was the second and final approval that the Greylock Property Group needed to develop the $20 million project known as Mystic Harbor Landing on the 5.5-acre site off Harry Austin Drive.
In February, the commission approved a master plan for the site. The current plan has 13 fewer units and 26 percent less square footage than a previous plan for the site that called for a large single structure.
Project attorney Bill Sweeney told the commission that the site plan is almost identical to the approved master plan except the project is now fully engineered with more detail. Compared to previous projects for the site, he said the current plan “has been downscaled in almost every aspect to the minimum needed to make it economically viable.”
He said the site plan approval is the final hurdle needed “to bring this site back into active reuse” and it would build on the investment being made next door at the Ocean Community YMCA, which has begun an extensive expansion and renovation project.
The project will be constructed in three phases, with buildings having a Nantucket-style design with gray shingles. Units will range in price from the high $400,000s to low $500,000s, depending on size of the unit and water views.
Greylock has had a contractual agreement with the property owner, Edgewood Capital of Southport, to explore potential development possibilities for the property. Sweeney said the two sides are now ready to close on the property, complete an environmental cleanup and begin construction next year.
In the fall of 2014, Edgewood had sought approval of modifications for the previously approved plan for 55 luxury condominiums. But the commission rejected the application after a group of neighbors opposed the changes. No one spoke against the project at Tuesday night’s public hearing.
Commission members cited the size and mass of the plan as well as their desire to maintain the character of the mill as reasons for their opposition. Edgewood then put the property up for sale.
More downtown Hartford apartments set
Construction will soon get underway to convert a long-vacant downtown building into 60 apartments and commercial space targeted at educators.
Developer RBH Group said it recently obtained construction financing for the $20 million project to be known as Teachers Corner, at 370 Asylum St., next door to Blackeyed Sally's restaurant.
Completion is set for next fall.
The Capital Region Development Authority is a participating financier.
Units will be a mix, ranging from $724 to $882 monthly for units tagged "affordable,'' and from $1,184 to $1,751 for market-rate units, officials said.
LaRosa Construction Co. Inc. is among the builders, with ICON Architectural Inc. and Centek Engineering Inc. as designers.
Cities are doing wacky things to host Amazon's second headquarters
Cities across North America are pulling out the stops to become the home of Amazon's second headquarters.
The efforts to lure the tech giant to town have been both big and creative, from sending a giant cactus to CEO Jeff Bezos to offering big tax breaks. A Georgia town even said it would de-annex some of its land and name it the city of Amazon.
Last month, Amazon announced plans to open another headquarters in North America. Called "HQ2," the facility will cost at least $5 billion to construct and operate, and will employ as many as 50,000 workers.
Cities and regional economic development organizations have been invited to submit proposals, due by October 19. Amazon has detailed a list of preferences, such as a suburban or urban area with more than 1 million people and a place that will attract technical talent.
"We're energized by the response from cities across North America who have expressed interest in hosting Amazon HQ2. We invited cities to think big and we are starting to see their creativity," Amazon spokesman Adam Sedo told CNN Tech.
Here's how cities are enticing Amazon to town.
Tucson
In an effort to bring HQ2 to Tucson and Southern Arizona, economic development group Sun Corridor loaded a 21-foot Saguaro cactus onto a truck to deliver to Amazon.
"We wanted to make sure Mr. Bezos and his team notice us and send a message of 'we have room for you to grow here for the long term,'" said Sun Corridor CEO Joe Snell in a statement. "We'll work with Governor [Doug] Ducey and the Arizona Commerce Authority closely to submit a strong case."
But Bezos won't be planting the cactus outside Amazon's Seattle campus anytime soon. The company tweeted that it couldn't accept gifts and donated the cactus to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Michael J. Daly: Hall back open with new exhibit
The Hall of Fame of Stunning Architects Renderings, located in a musty room on the second floor of Bridgeport City Hall at 45 Lyon Terrace, has had few visitors in recent years and even fewer new exhibits.
The pastel drawings of assorted hotels, casinos, a permanent downtown circus, ferry terminals, Babylons, Avalons, convention centers, apartment towers, stadiums and so on may have faded a bit but they retain still a pulse-quickening allure.
If half of those proposals paraded through Bridgeport over the last 40 years had actually been built, the city would be the new Atlantis, broken off from the eastern seaboard by the weight of the concrete, chrome, steel and glass and sent bubbling to the bottom of Long Island Sound.
Thankfully the city has been spared that fate, primarily by the ultimate failure of nearly every one of those plans.
But a new set of stunning architects’ renderings has emerged, setting pulses skittering and mouths watering. MGM Resorts International has proposed a $675 million waterfront entertainment center — a tourism destination. they call it — in Bridgeport. It centers around a casino, of course, but will offer all the other top-shelf amenities associated with the MGM brand.
I was about to write that I am not a gambler, but I’ll take that back. Making a living at a a typewriter may be one of the biggest gambles of all.
So, I’ll rephrase that I’m not a casino guy. I was in one once in Las Vegas — it very well could have been an MGM property — with two of my daughters and it was more of a cultural exploration visit.
But casinos are here to stay. And if there’s going to be another one in Connecticut — and there will be — it should be in Bridgeport. And there are a lot of reasons for that.
It is the state’s biggest population center. It is desperately in need of jobs. It is 50 some odd miles from Manhattan.
Last month, the MGM top dog, a Bridgeport native named Jim Murren, came to the city, to the long-vacant site of the former Carpenter Steel site on Seaview Avenue, at the edge of the city’s East End, to say that his company — unlike some other high-profile outfits that have left — wants to be in Connecticut and has an opening offering of $50 million to prove it.
As Murren pitched his plan, under a tent pitched on the desolate site, across Yellow Mill Pond from the city and the Bass Pro Shop, as if on cue, the Port Jefferson ferry P.T. Barnum glided into its nearby berth, an Amtrak train came into the Bridgeport station and several planes droned on their approach or take off from Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Stratford. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
So, I’ll rephrase that I’m not a casino guy. I was in one once in Las Vegas — it very well could have been an MGM property — with two of my daughters and it was more of a cultural exploration visit.
But casinos are here to stay. And if there’s going to be another one in Connecticut — and there will be — it should be in Bridgeport. And there are a lot of reasons for that.
It is the state’s biggest population center. It is desperately in need of jobs. It is 50 some odd miles from Manhattan.
Last month, the MGM top dog, a Bridgeport native named Jim Murren, came to the city, to the long-vacant site of the former Carpenter Steel site on Seaview Avenue, at the edge of the city’s East End, to say that his company — unlike some other high-profile outfits that have left — wants to be in Connecticut and has an opening offering of $50 million to prove it.
As Murren pitched his plan, under a tent pitched on the desolate site, across Yellow Mill Pond from the city and the Bass Pro Shop, as if on cue, the Port Jefferson ferry P.T. Barnum glided into its nearby berth, an Amtrak train came into the Bridgeport station and several planes droned on their approach or take off from Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Stratford. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE