Business

Boutique Beauty Studio Planned for South Avenue

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A boutique beauty studio is planned for a vacant commercial space in downtown New Canaan. The new business at 21 South Ave. will offer “personal care and cosmetic services along with retail sales of beauty and grooming products,” according to documents filed with Planning & Zoning. “The front portion of the space, immediately accessible from the main entry, will be dedicated to retail merchandise, customer reception, waiting area, and two beauty service stations with integrated retail shelving,” according to a proposed business description. 

It continued: “These retail functions will occupy the first portion of the premises in compliance with zoning requirements. The interior service areas will include a private full-size treatment room, an airbrush tanning room, and additional service rooms for appointment-based aesthetic services.”

The business’s operations will be “quiet in nature, with typical daytime and early-evening business hours, and customer visits will be primarily by appointment,” it said.

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.

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.

Business

‘Part of Our Family’: Ann Cheney Retires from Walter Stewart’s After 20 Years

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Ann Cheney remembers her first day at work at Walter Stewart’s Market, an August morning 20 years ago. An art history major out of Fairfield University who had worked briefly in that field prior to having children, she heard about the job in New Canaan from a recruiter after leaving a part-time job with a food service provider. 

“The store was slow, but I was getting to know the team—Alex, Doug and of course, Bailey—and I’ll never forget the first thing that Alex said to me was, ‘Look around at our customers—this is a place to connect,’ ” Cheney recalled. “And it absolutely has been. It is a local gathering place.”

For two decades, Cheney, longtime store manager at Stewart’s, has greeted customers and co-workers with a smile, overseeing multiple departments in a business that staffs nearly 70 people. Friday will be her last day at work.

Business

Fitness Training Business Planned for Vitti Street 

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A new wellness center is planned for a vacant commercial space on Vitti Street. The former site of a dry cleaners and later an apparel company, the first floor at 43 Vitti St. will be converted into a “boutique coach-led training program” under an application before the Planning & Zoning Commission. The new business, which appears from a site plan application to be called “The Strength Collective”—there’s a Stamford-based company under the same name, according to Connecticut Secretary of the State records—offers services “designed to improve mobility, resilience and long-term health for adults,” the application said. “The training model uses small group sessions, personalized programming, and low noise output,” it said.