Municipal officials say they’ll wait for input from members of the next Board of Selectmen prior to soliciting offers from prospective buyers of an historic town-owned building on Main Street.
The sitting selectmen also said at their most recent meeting that they need to consider additional updates to a 2021 version of an RFP for Vine Cottage—a ca. 1860-built Victorian gothic revival that currently serves as home of the New Canaan Health Department—before reissuing it.
Earlier this month, Selectman Nick Williams raised the prospect of issuing an updated RFP because he discovered there could be a credible buyer.
“I don’t want the town to lose the opportunity…for a credible bidder who, for whatever reason, wants to move quickly,” Williams said at the selectmen’s Oct. 17 meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference.
“This Board of Selectmen had in the past made a determination to solicit offers for Vine Cottage, which we didn’t really get any good offers, I think, suffice to say,” Williams said.
“The individual that approached me, I think, is serious about making an offer on Vine Cottage,” he said. “To be clear, the RFP that we issued in 2019 and ‘21 said, ‘OK, we’re going to keep Vine Cottage basically as it is from the outside, we will have restricted covenants, making sure that the appearance of Vine Cottage stays as it is, pretty much in whole.’ And I think that’s important from a historic and a preservation perspective.”
Williams noted that the Board of Selectmen as currently constructed—himself, First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectman Kathleen Corbet, none of whom will seek re-election next month— “is not going to make a determination as to whether to sell or keep Vine Cottage.”
“The reason I pushed this was because this particular bidder said, ‘I really would like to move as quickly as possible,’ showing intent—I think, serious intent—to make a fulsome offer,” Williams said. “And I didn’t want the town to lose that opportunity and the future Board of Selectmen and the future Town Council to lose that potential opportunity to sell or not sell. It’s up to them. We’re going to be gone. And that’s why I pushed for another RFP. This would be the third one with respect to the sale of Vine Cottage. Vine Cottage is not ADA-compliant. It’s not good swing space for the town. The Outback—the Town Annex, whatever we call it—is a much better use of space. It’s much, much more practical. Irwin has his issues, too, but it’s just a much bigger footprint. And the problem with Vine Cottage is you can’t really use the second floor, because it’s not ADA-compliant. There’s no elevator. If you want to put in an elevator, that’s going to be half a million, three quarters of a million dollars.”
Williams noted that the town did paint the Vine Cottage in the summer of 2022 (see photo at right), work that he supported “even though I thought we probably should eventually sell Vine Cottage because I don’t think it works for the town.”
A lawyer from the town attorney’s firm, Doug LoMonte, attended the meeting as a guest. After Williams raised the possibility of selling Vine Cottage, LoMonte was tasked with updating the most recent RFP issued.
“Basically what I did is I took the 2019 and 2021 [RFPs], which were virtually identical, and I changed the dates, not being familiar with items like the building having been repainted, et cetera,” he said. “So it was intended for your consideration and I welcome all comments, questions, and instructions.”
Corbet said she still had some “open items” with the draft RFP and would not want to move forward formally with the process until those questions are addressed, and the new selectmen have a chance to weigh in.
In the summer of 2018, Moynihan said that the Vine Cottage would likely be sold, and though then-Selectman Kit Devereaux pushed back on the move, the selectmen voted 2-1 in June 2019 to approve the RFP. A field of four interested parties was narrowed down to two contenders, Robert Cuda and Arnold Karp, Moynihan has said. Cuda died in December 2019 and the town has not accepted any offers, including one made in December 2021. Shortly thereafter, Moynihan suggested that the town may seek to retain the space for the Health Department.
Williams suggested that the town could include a “right of first offer” in the reissued RFP.
“It is an adjacent property and one could consider a right of first offer as part of this RFP,” he said.
Williams added, “That’s something that people have expressed to me, that there might be an opportunity for the town to say, ‘Hey, if we want to get it back, maybe we incorporate a right of first offer.’ So that’s why I was pushing this at the end of the game here. I really wanted to keep it on the table for the next first selectmen and the Board of Selectmen to consider.”
In the end, the selectmen tabled the re-issuance of the RFP, with input from the next Board and updates based on comments, for a future meeting. The current Board is scheduled to meet Nov. 8—the day after the election. It’s unclear just when the newly elected Board will be in place.