Government

Take Two: ‘Scene One New Canaan LLC’ To Operate Playhouse Movie Theater

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Town officials this week approved a lease with a Delaware-based limited liability company to operate The Playhouse. The Town Council and Board of Selectmen both voted unanimously in favor of a five-year lease with Scene One New Canaan LLC. Joseph Masher, representing the company, told the selectmen during their regular meeting Tuesday that he is sole owner of Scene One Entertainment, formerly Bow Tie Management. “For 20 years I was the chief operating officer of Bow Tie Cinemas,” Masher said during the meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “So I have extensive experience with the old Playhouse and I’m very excited to be back, and what you’ve done with the Playhouse—making it into its current iteration—it’s amazing and my goal is to make sure that it is a centerpiece, is the centerpiece of town and the beacon of Elm Street.”

According to the Scene One website, the Schenectady, N.Y.-based company currently operates six movie theaters in four states, including New York.

Business

Adirondack Store: ‘We Plan To Continue To Expand and Build Our Brand’

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The owners of a popular store in downtown New Canaan say they’re working with their landlords, as they have in the past, amid a highly seasonal retail environment to ensure continued investment in the community. When it began fitting out its space on Elm Street, The Adirondack Store “invested in a 10-year commitment to New Canaan,” owner Christopher English said. “And we just wanted to put it out there that the blurb of what was put in, the court documents, is really not represented correctly because it says that the rent is $11,250 a month—that was the rent the first month that we opened,” English said, referring to this news article. “Our rent is actually $23,416.67 a month and continues to go up. So we have invested over $1 million in rent since we have been in New Canaan.

Board of Finance

Library Seeks $1 Million Grant from Town To Offset Estimated $2 Million Renovation of 1913 Building

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New Canaan Library officials are seeking a $1 million grant from the town to help redevelop its legacy building —about one-half of the cost of a project that the organization is planning. Tasked by the Planning & Zoning Commission with preserving the original 1913 building—which was not part of the library’s rebuilding plans—the library spent $2.4 million, an “additional cost that we undertook with our own cash and our own endowment reserves to preserve, pick up, lift and move that building,” according to library CEO Ellen Sullivan Crovatto. “This has left us with a very big hole to fill,” Sullivan Crovatto told members of the Board of Finance at their Feb. 5 meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. She added: “I think the building’s new position has pleased pretty much everyone.

Business

Eviction Notice Served on Elm Street Business

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The owner of a commercial building on Elm Street last week filed papers to evict a tenant there, saying rent hasn’t been paid since October, court records show. According to a complaint filed Feb. 6 in state Superior Court, the tenant at 39 Elm St. failed to pay $11,250 that month and every month thereafter. The address is the same as the Adirondack Store, which is listed as a non-appearing defendant in the case.

Government

Affordable Housing: Judge Sustains Developer’s Appeal in 93-Unit Complex on Hill Street

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A state Superior Court judge last week upheld a developer’s appeal in a nearly three-year case regarding a planned 93-unit complex on Hill Street in New Canaan. 

The town’s Planning & Zoning Commission in April 2023 denied three applications filed on behalf of developer Arnold Karp—to amend the town’s zoning regulations, rezone the properties at 17 and 23 Hill Street, and approve a site plan to create the complex there. In issuing its denial, P&Z cited several factors, mainly pedestrian and vehicle safety, environmental impact and limited emergency response. In a 61-page decision issued Friday, Judge Stephen Frazzini noted that the public safety concerns raised in P&Z’s denial focused mainly on “the width of the access driveway, the width of internal driving corridors, and the lack of sidewalks” planned for the site. Yet the town’s call for an additional access road to the site for fire safety reasons was rejected, on appeal, by the state fire marshal, Frazzini noted in his decision. P&Z also found that a lack of sidewalks would be harmful to pedestrians, without ever saying how (outside of an emergency situation), falling short of the legal standard, the judge noted.