About half of the 27 parking spaces at the proposed new Post Office on Locust Avenue will be designated for USPS customers, and after-hours they likely will be open for customers of restaurants in town, the site’s developer said Thursday night.
Proposed Post Office for 18-26 Locust Ave. in New Canaan. Rendering by James Schettino Architects
A second-floor commercial tenant on the proposed 8,220-square-foot building would use an estimated 10 spaces at 18-26 Locust Ave., while the Post Office requires three or four spaces for workers at the new branch, leaving about 13 or 14 spaces for customers, according to New Canaan’s Richard Carratu.
“The postal trucks will not park on-site, which is important for the town—they will only come in four times a day to deliver mail from Stamford to New Canaan and load it and then leave, so there will be no permanent trucks on-site,” Carratu told the Parking Commission during its regular monthly meeting, held in the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center.
Carratu said he’s agreed on business terms with the Post Office and that as of Thursday, the USPS district that includes New Canaan had signed off on the proposed building.
Plans call for a two-story brick, cupola-topped, Federal-style structure at a combined lot that would include 18 and 26 Locust Ave. Carratu said he has a contract on an additional 3,000-square-foot parcel out back of the lots that will afford additional parking spaces.
Originally, the project had called for far less parking spaces than the 41 that the proposed use of the new building would require—even calculating in 10 “grandfathered” spaces that the proposed structure would gain by improving on a shortfall of spaces that currently exists between the two parcels.
Instead, the developer would have sought to use a “fee-in-lieu” rule in the Zoning Regulations, which would allow them to pay the town (in this case $52,500) for a permanent reduction by seven to the number of spaces required.
Members of the Parking Commission commended Carratu for stepping up to acquire the parcel out back (it’s gone to contract, Carratu said) to bring in additional spaces.
The commission voted 5-0 in support of the site and building plans for the proposed Post Office.
“I think it’s great we get to have a Post Office in town and I think you have improved parking situation right there,” Richey said. “It’s also great—I think you have said in another forum—that for these parking spots, you don’t mind if people use them in the evening, which will help the restaurants [in the area].”
Commission Secretary Rick Franco urged Carratu to establish some “ground rules” with respect to the off-hours parking—for example, through signage—so that no one took advantage of his generosity by using the spaces overnight.
Carratu said that with three automated kiosks in the lobby of the proposed Post Office, based on independent studies he expects USPS customers to spend five to 10 minutes inside the building.
Commissioners and Parking Bureau Supervisor Karen Miller asked how many spaces Carratu expects to gain with the parcel in back (about eight or nine), what type of business he was seeking for the second floor (law firm or title insurance), how many on-street parking spaces there are in front of the proposed building (three) and whether he expects to convert those from 90- to 15-minute spots (sure, if the town so desires). Carratu said during an interview after the meeting that it isn’t clear at this point just how many parking spaces will be offered on the site by the time the full application and approval process has finished.
He and attorney Michael Sweeney are scheduled on Monday night to present plans for the new building to the Planning & Zoning Commission:
https://newcanaanite.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Application_for_Amendment_Zoning_Map.pdf