Town officials this week approved two contracts for the demolition of a long-disused town-owned building at the New Canaan Nature Center.
Inside the ‘Audubon House’ at the New Canaan Nature Center. Photo courtesy of New Canaan Nature Center
The “Audubon House” is a deteriorating 15-by-30-foot structure located across from the Oenoke Ridge nonprofit organization’s Visitor Center and it’s “at the end of its usable life and is being removed so as not to create a hazardous condition,” according to Joe Zagarenski, senior engineer in the Department of Public Works.
“We have completed the required ‘alternative work practice plan’ and it’s been filed and approved with the Connecticut DPH [Department of Public Health] because there’s hazardous materials in the building,” Zagarenski told members of the Board of Selectmen at their regular meeting, held Tuesday in Town Hall and via videoconference.
First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted 3-0 in favor of contracts with Stamford Wrecking ($26,400) and Darien Electric ($3,000).
The second contract is to “go in and just safe off the electrical at the source,” Zagarenski said.
“So they have to find it and shut it off,” he said. “So it’ll most likely be less than the $3,000, but I didn’t want to have to come back if they have to spend more than a day working on it. Then once we get approval, we’ll get the contractor on board, then there’s the whole building permit process. So we’ll go through the whole building permit process and make sure we do everything that’s required so that we can dispose of this building properly.”
The selectmen asked what happens to the remnants of the building (it goes into a giant lined dumpster and is carted to an appropriate facility), whether that removal cost is included in the contract with Stamford Wrecking (yes), what the site will look like afterwards (the foundation will be removed, filled in and topped off, then grass will grow later), whether it’s going to be fenced off to keep kids out (that might not be necessary), whether it needs to be soil-tested (no) and what’s the timing for the demo (hopefully spring).
The town spent about $4,000 last summer with a civil and environmental engineering company to prepare for the demolition.
The building originally served as a laundry facility for the late Susan Dwight Bliss, a New Canaan resident and philanthropist. In 1959, she gifted the town 40 acres of green space, and soon an agreement was reached with the newly formed New Canaan Nature Center Association Incorporated. Officials for more than a decade have talked about how to use the long-disused structure. Nature Center representatives two years ago floated new ideas for its use.