Town Officials Approve Request To Demo ‘Audubon House’ at Nature Center

The New Canaanite 2024 Summer Internship Program is sponsored by Karp Associates. Town officials last week approved a request to demolish a long-disused town-owned building at the New Canaan Nature Center. During the Aug. 6 meeting of the Board of Selectmen, officials discussed the future of the “Audubon House,” a deteriorating 15-by-30-foot structure located across from the Oenoke Ridge nonprofit organization’s Visitor Center. 

Department of Public Works Senior Engineer Joe Zagarenski asked the Board of Selectmen for authorization to enter into a contract with Fuss & O’Neill, a civil and environmental engineering company. 

The contract, in the amount of $4,355 plus a contingency of $800 (a total of $5,155), is required to perform the demolition of the rectangular structure, Zagarenski told the Board at its regular meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. 

Director of Public Works Tiger Mann said the cost is funded in the fiscal year 2024-25 budget in a $50,000 line item. The building originally served as a laundry facility for the late Susan Dwight Bliss, a New Canaan resident and philanthropist.

Town Approves Two Contracts To Ready Temporary Police Department HQ Downtown

The Board of Selectmen last week approved a pair of contracts totaling about $73,000 as the town prepares to move the New Canaan Police Department into a leased building downtown while the agency’s headquarters on South Avenue undergoes a widely anticipated renovation. The Board of Education is expected to vacate its longtime home at 39 Locust Ave. on Aug. 24, and at that point the town will start outfitting the space to make it ready for NCPD, according to Joe Zagarenski, senior engineer in the Department of Public Works. (The Board of Ed is moving into a newly acquired town building at 220 Elm St.)

“We have about 12 weeks to fit out the space to make it ready for the Police Department to move in,” Zagarenski said during the selectmen’s May 2 meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference.