10 Apartments OK’d For Ex-Art Gallery Building

by Thomas Breen CTNewsJunkie

The City Plan Commission voted Wednesday to allow a Fair Haven-based developer to convert the former home of the Ely Center art gallery on Trumbull Street into 10 new studio apartments.

The commissioners granted that unanimous gallery-to-housing approval during their latest monthly online meeting.

They voted in support of a site plan to convert an existing two-and-a-half-story, mixed-use building at 51 Trumbull St. into ten residential units, including one affordable unit per the city’s Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance.

The Elizabethan mansion, known as the John Slade Ely House, was home to a variety of local arts organizations from 1961 through 2025 — including, most recently, the Ely Center of Contemporary Art.

In 2022, a nonprofit affiliated with that art gallery bought the building with the help of a loan from local developers Carmine and Vincenzo Capasso of the Lloyd Street-based company G.L. Capasso. The Capassos subsequently took ownership of the building in 2024, leading to the Ely Center art gallery vacating the property in December 2025 before moving into a new temporary space at CitySeed’s headquarters on James Street.

On Wednesday, local attorney Ben Trachten pitched the local land-use commissioners on the Capassos’ plans to turn the ex-art gallery building into 10 new studio apartments.

He said that the 51 Trumbull St. building was originally used as a residence. Most recently, it was home to “an arts institution that failed, or needed to relocate,” and so the owner has now “decided to pursue a plan of residential conversion to keep the building occupied.”

Trachten said that this will be an interior renovation, and that the Trumbull Street mansion’s exterior will be preserved. He also said that the building currently has no on-site parking, and this residential conversion does not include any. He said that people moving in and out of the building should be able to use nearby Lincoln Street as a drop-off point.

City Plan Commission member Leslie Radcliffe asked how big these new apartments will be.

“They’re all proposed studios,” Trachten said, “and they’re all pretty small,” likely in the range of 400 to 500 square feet each.

“I think that the reuse of this building and not changing the exterior is a great thing,” Radcliffe said. She said the new apartments will fit well in this area of Trumbull Street, which has plenty of other housing as well as easy access to public transportation and the highway. “I think this is a great reuse of that building.”

All four commissioners present at the meeting — Radcliffe, Joshua Van Hoesen, Joy Gary, and Carl Goldfield — then voted in support of the site plan.

The Capassos’ development permit for this project states that they plan to begin the residential conversion within 30 days of approval, and that the project should take 6 to 9 months to complete. The one affordable apartment will be set aside for a renter making no more than 50 percent of the area median income (AMI), which currently translates to $39,800 for a family of one.