Government

Selectmen Approve Contracts for Newly Renovated Police Station, on Track for June

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The Board of Selectmen this month approved a series of contracts for the newly renovated Police Department building on South Avenue, which officials say is on track for an early-June move-in. One $35,000 contract with a Shelton-based company, CDW-G, is for “monitors, smart TVs, brackets, cables, cameras” and other related equipment for the Police Department, according to Joe Zagarenski, senior engineer in the New Canaan Department of Public Works. “We’re not hiring a vendor, we’re just going to purchase everything directly so we don’t have to pay any additional markups on it,” Zagarenski told the selectmen at their April 15 meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. 

He continued: “So this includes all the wall-mounted monitors, TVs—there are about 26 in total—[it] covers training rooms, meeting rooms, conference rooms, dispatch, roll call, break rooms, detective bureaus offices, and a couple other miscellaneous ones.”

Funds for the hardware are available in the PD project budget, he said. First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted in favor of the contract. The selectmen also approved two approximately $24,000 contracts—one for designing and installing irrigation systems for the new plantings outside the police station, and another to uninstall the emergency generator at the temporary police HQ downtown.

Government

Town Approves Contract for Pre-Demolition Services at Irwin House

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Town officials this month approved an approximately $58,000 contract for environmental services required in order to demolish the main and guest houses in Irwin Park. The prospect of demolishing Irwin House—a 1963-built Colonial that served as the temporary home of some municipal departments during the Town Hall renovation and expansion about 10 years ago—emerged publicly during the recently completed budget process. On April 15, the Board of Selectmen approved a contract with New Haven-based Fuss & O’Neill to prepare for the project. The environmental services firm “will perform the pre-demolition hazardous material inspections and design services,” according to Joe Zagarenski, senior engineer in the Department of Public Works. “They will inspect the building for asbestos, lead paint, PCBs and mercury, and they create a big document for us to remove them,” he told the selectmen at the regular meeting, held in Town Hall and via videoconference.

Government

Selectmen OK Demolition of Town-Owned 1900-Built House on Grove Street

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The Board of Selectmen last week approved an approximately $54,000 contract to demolish a town-owned house on Grove Street. The town two years ago purchased the 1900-built house at 28 Grove St. for about $1 million, calling the .15-acre parcel a “strategic” property in that it backs up to the Lumberyard Lot. 

At their regular meeting on March 25, the selectmen voted 3-0 to approve $54,198 in contracts to raze the house and a shed and remove contaminants from the site. “The demolition would include the foundation of the building,” Joe Zagarenski, senior engineer with the Department of Public Works, said at the meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “And then we would just level it off to make it safe.

Government

Town Approves Contracts for Demo of ‘Audubon House’ at Nature Center

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Town officials this week approved two contracts for the demolition of a long-disused town-owned building at the New Canaan Nature Center. The “Audubon House” is a deteriorating 15-by-30-foot structure located across from the Oenoke Ridge nonprofit organization’s Visitor Center and it’s “at the end of its usable life and is being removed so as not to create a hazardous condition,” according to Joe Zagarenski, senior engineer in the Department of Public Works. “We have completed the required ‘alternative work practice plan’ and it’s been filed and approved with the Connecticut DPH [Department of Public Health] because there’s hazardous materials in the building,” Zagarenski told members of the Board of Selectmen at their regular meeting, held Tuesday in Town Hall and via videoconference. First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted 3-0 in favor of contracts with Stamford Wrecking ($26,400) and Darien Electric ($3,000). The second contract is to “go in and just safe off the electrical at the source,” Zagarenski said.

Government

‘This Is a Big Milestone’: NCPD To Move Back into South Avenue HQ in June

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The New Canaan Police Department is expected to move back into its permanent home on South Avenue during the first week of June following a widely anticipated renovation and expansion, about six months ahead of schedule, officials say. The $20 million renovation of the police station at 174 South Ave.—about $29 million with soft costs such as insurance and creating a temporary police headquarters downtown—long has been pegged to wrap up around Thanksgiving 2025. Yet the project, which includes a complete gut and renovation of the existing 1927-built police station—the original New Canaan High School—with an addition of a new sallyport at the southeastern corner of the building, is now on track for NCPD to move back in June 3, according to Joe Zagarenski, senior engineer in the Department of Pubilc Works. In requesting about $30,000 from the Board of Selectmen to move dispatch consoles and radio equipment out of the temporary police station downtown, Zagarenski said Tuesday, “This is the last thing we have to do before the PD moves back to 174 South Avenue.”

“This is a big milestone for the project,” he told the selectmen at their regular meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. Town officials had discussed the need to renovate the Police Department for many years.