by Thomas Breen
The City Plan Commission voted unanimously Wednesday evening to approve the construction of 242 new affordable apartments atop adjacent ex-industrial properties in Newhallville.
The “Elm City Lofts” project will see the conversion of an existing five-story former Winchester Arms factory building at 89 Shelton Ave. into 98 new apartments. That industrial building has long been occupied by artists, musicians, and a rock climbing gym — and almost became a self-storage facility.
The project will also see the construction of two new buildings — one four stories tall and containing 60 residential units, the other five stories tall and containing 84 residential units — on an empty lot at 71 Shelton Ave. that was once the site of a nuclear manufacturing facility.
The complex will have 262 parking spaces for cars and 180 parking spaces for bicycles.
Commissioners approved the project’s site plan Wednesday during their latest monthly online meeting — marking a key final sign-off for a proposed development that has also seen the Board of Alders approve a 17-year tax-break deal and rezone the lots from heavy industrial to residential use. The Board of Zoning Appeals has also granted the developers permission to install food-related retailers in ground-floor commercial spaces on site.
“Elm City Lofts” represents just the latest large-scale residential redevelopment to pop up in recent years in this stretch of Newhallville and Science Park — and will be located just steps away from Axis201, Cadence on Canal, The Winston, Winchester Lofts, and Beulah’s new affordable complex at Dixwell, Munson, and Orchard.
The “Elm City Lofts” project’s developers are the Connecticut-based companies Vesta Corporation and Vallone Ventures. (The properties’ owners are companies controlled by Crown Bell Management’s Schneur Katz, who has long tried to sell these parcels.)
As local attorney Carolyn Kone and Vesta Vice President Joshua Greenblatt said during Wednesday’s online meeting, all 242 of the new apartments will be reserved for tenants making no more than 60 percent of the area median income (AMI); 58 of those apartments will be set aside for tenants making under 50 percent AMI.
“This project really represents a unique opportunity to reinvest in one of the city’s historic industrial assets” — namely, the former Winchester Arms mill building at 89 Shelton, said Paul Santos of Newman Architects. That factory building was constructed in 1915 and will undergo a “deep restoration” and cleanup in order to remove the property’s current Environmental Land Use Restriction (ELUR) and allow for residential use. Kone said that the city has received a $6 million state grant to assist with that environmental remediation.
Santos said that the two new buildings slated for 71 Shelton should provide a “contemporary complement to that industrial character” of the to-be-preserved 89 Shelton building.
“We’re trying to create a residential campus that contributes to the street life of Shelton Avenue,” he added, pointing to the planned new ground-floor retail spaces at the 242-unit complex.
David Gagnan, the project’s engineer, said that there will be two curb cuts — down from four — on Shelton Avenue, and one curb cut on Argyle Street. There will also be pedestrian access to the Farmington Canal Trail, which abuts the properties to the east.
“What do you anticipate the actions will be that you will take to get that ELUR removed?” asked Westville Alder and City Plan Commission member Adam Marchand. “I want to feel really assured that this is gonna go great and that people will live in a safe and wholesome place.”
Josh Kaplan of the environmental consulting firm GeoQuest said that the developers will follow the process laid out by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) for releases of ELURs. “There will be soil removal,” he said, and “any soil in areas that cannot be removed will be capped in place in accordance with the regulations to ensure that any occupants, visitors, residents of the property will not be exposed to any contaminants.”
“I think this project is really important,” Marchand said as he urged his colleagues on the board to vote in support of the site plan. “It ticks a lot of boxes in terms of the goals we discussed in our comprehensive plan,” including around “affordable housing and high-quality places for people to live. We recently changed the zoning in the area to unlock it for this kind of development. We’re glad to see this project come before us.”
The layout of the proposed new apartment complex.
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