Business

New Canaan Merchants Could Kickstart Sidewalk Sales on Friday This Summer

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With Darien and Greenwich now planning to hold their Sidewalk Sales on the same weekend traditionally “reserved” by New Canaan, downtown merchants hope to kick off this year’s big event one day earlier than usual, officials said. Businesses with storefronts downtown could put their discounted goods out on the sidewalks in front of them during regular hours on Friday, July 15, and the full-on and hugely popular Village Fair & Sidewalk Sale—including street closures, additional vendors and a food court in the Pop Up Park—will be held as usual on Saturday, July 16, according to Tucker Murphy, executive director of the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce, which organizes the event. “What we’re going to propose is to have our local merchants on the sidewalk on that Friday to have a little bit of a leg up,” Murphy told the Planning & Zoning Commission at the group’s regular meeting Tuesday night, held at Town Hall. “And the other benefit to this is that, God forbid if you have some weather on either side, this would give you another day to have some movement of your inventory and some sales.”

This summer’s Sidewalk Sales will mark the event’s 50th anniversary in New Canaan, Murphy said. For as long as she’s been head of the chamber (seven years in April), Murphy said, she’s met with fellow chamber directors to map out their special events and make sure there’s no awkward crossover.

Business

Officials ‘OK’ White—Not Red—Verizon Sign on Elm Street

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Calling the Verizon ‘checkmark’ a logo and saying a proposed sign with a red background would be incongruous with the rest of the street, town officials recently approved a new sign for the company’s location at 139 Elm St. The Planning and Zoning Commission is asking Verizon to remove a second, similar-looking sign that now stands in the window of the downtown business and to create a white sign with red lettering rather than the inverse. Verizon has already lowered its awning to make room for a mounted sign and the proposed would sign would blend in better with the row of businesses there, “rather than a 12-foot wide swath of red background,” P&Z Commissioner Dan Radman said at the group’s Aug. 25 meeting. “It will be a little more in keeping with street elevation right there,” Radman said at the meeting, held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center.

Government

‘Why Would You Want This Clutter?’: P&Z Opposes Lawn Signs at Town Hall

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Members of the Planning & Zoning Commission are urging officials to leave the front lawn of Town Hall free of event and campaign signs as the recently renovated and expanded building at 77 Main St. phases back in as the central location for municipal offices. Prior to closing for the major construction project two years ago, some 30 to 40 requests to place signs on the front lawn of Town Hall came in each year, officials said Tuesday at a special meeting of the Board of Selectmen. It isn’t clear just how that proliferation developed, but with a “signature building like the new Town Hall” that “looks wonderful and is landscaped fairly well,” it doesn’t make sense to place signs out from, P&Z Commission Secretary Jean Grzelecki said at the meeting, held in the Training Room at the New Canaan Police Department. Said fellow P&Z Commissioner Elizabeth DeLuca, head of the group’s sign committee: “We have this beautiful building and landscape design, and why would you want this clutter in front of this building?”

Though they stopped short of a formal vote, First Selectman Rob Mallozzi and Selectman Beth Jones both voiced support for the P&Z recommendation.

Government

Planning Officials Raise Questions about Proposed Motorist-Bicyclist Signs

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Asked to weigh in on whether New Canaan should place signs around town instructing motorists to give a legally required 3-foot berth to cyclists, planning officials on Tuesday raised questions about the proposed sign itself, how it’s mounted, just what streets would get one and the timing of its possible installment. Planning & Zoning Commissioner Claire Tiscornia said she’s all for safety but that the specific sign developed by the Sound Cyclists Bicycle Club could confuse passing motorists. “To me that looks like a school bus sign—the sign with the bus and the little light,” Tiscornia said at P&Z’s regular meeting, held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center. “For me, if I was driving down the road, I would think, ‘Why is that school bus sign there?’ And I think it’s a little small. I’m not sure if I was driving by that I would think ‘Share the road.’ I would look at the bike sign and then either it’s too small for me to read or I would just go right past it.

Business

‘It Should Be Called Bank of Somalia’: Papp Slams Bank of America for Unkempt Property on Elm

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The Bank of America property opposite the Playhouse on Elm Street is unkempt and unsightly, and New Canaan should have some mechanism—in its Town Code, budget or Zoning Regulations—to either force the bank to spruce up the area or empower the town to fix it promptly, officials say. If New Canaan doesn’t have the authority now, then the Town Council should adopt an ordinance that would force the Bank of America and other businesses whose properties front public sidewalks downtown to “do a decent job,” Planning & Zoning Commission member Laszlo Papp said Wednesday at a meeting of the Plan of Conservation and Development (or “POCD”) Implementation Committee. “The area in front of Bank of America is atrocious,” Papp said at the meeting, held in the Training Room at the New Canaan Police Department. “Bank of America doesn’t even deserve the name—it should be called ‘Bank of Somalia.’ That is the way it looks.”

The criticism emerged during a wider discussion of improving aesthetics downtown, among members of the committee—an advisory group of elected and appointed officials, municipal employees and residents, charged with seeing through relevant recommendations of the recently updated POCD (see especially Section 4, starting on page 29 here). The parcel occupied by Bank of America is owned by a company, care of a separate company whose principal is a Danbury woman, according to records on file with the town Assessor and Connecticut Secretary of the State.