Business

Town Officials Weigh Re-Designation of 15-Minute Spots around Mrs. Green’s

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While Mrs. Green’s eyes customer parking at a lot beneath its building, town officials are raising questions about how on- and off-street parking designations near Park and Pine may be adjusted to accommodate the new mini-hub there. In New Canaan, on-street parking is handled by the Police Commission, and off-street by the Parking Commission. The eight spaces that run alongside what is now the Mrs. Green’s building long have been 15-minute spots, as have designated spaces in the lot on the other side of Pine (opposite CVS), from when the New Canaan Post Office was located at 2 Pine St. Town officials this week weighed whether an ADA-required handicapped parking space for Mrs. Green’s should be located in the underground lot (if there’s an elevator) or on Pine Street right next to the building. “Instead of putting one underneath, it would be better served to have that first spot there [outside, nearest the main Mrs. Green’s entrance],” Department of Public Works Assistant Director Tiger Mann said Monday during a meeting of the Traffic Calming Work Group.

Around Town

New Canaan Nature Center, Town, Businesses and Organizations Mark Earth Day 2014 [VIDEOS]

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“Where have those flowers and butterflies all gone

That science may have staked the future on?”

—from Robert Frost’s “Pod of the Milkweed”

 

The migration of monarch butterflies through New Canaan—and everywhere else along the East Coast—is happening less frequently in recent years, to the point where some are calling the insects’ once widely anticipated journey between the Northeast/Canada and Mexico “endangered.”

The major reason, experts say, is a lack of milkweed, which monarch caterpillars feed on. “The butterflies can go to all kinds of flowers for nectar, but the caterpillars can only eat milkweed plants. They’re having a hard time with loss of bio-habitat, so we are encouraging people in town to plant these free milkweed seeds,” Susan Bergen, a volunteer for the New Canaan Garden Club, said Tuesday morning from a table inside New Canaan Library. There, she and Jen Rayher (nee Sillo, a 1994 New Canaan High School graduate), director of membership and volunteers at the New Canaan Nature Center, handed out the seeds (“Got Milkweed?” on the packet) to mark Earth Day here in town. It’s one of several initiatives and events planned by the Nature Center for the next week, which New Canaan’s highest elected official today declared “Environmental Awareness Week 2014Week” (see video below).

Board of Selectmen

Five Years On: New Canaan Chamber’s Tucker Murphy Shepherds Community, Commerce with ‘Positive High Energy’

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Here’s a word that lifelong New Canaanite Beth Jones—a 1974 New Canaan High School graduate who serves on the Board of Selectmen and belongs to the Kiwanis Club of New Canaan and League of Women Voters—used Friday to describe the positive changes brought to our community by the Chamber of Commerce these past five years: “Unbelievable.”

Splintered at the time Tucker Murphy took over as executive director, with a business-led group that called itself the “New Canaan Village Association” breaking off to create the now-annual Holiday Stroll and push for more activity, the chamber today is credited not only with mending the rift and boosting the visibility of local businesses through new events, but also with creating something that’s difficult to describe—a kind of inclusiveness, feeling of shared mission and connection among not just businesses but also nonprofit groups, community organizations, individuals and the town itself. Thursday marked exactly five years since Murphy took over as executive director at the chamber—bringing in marketing associate Laura Soper Budd along the way. Asked to describe what they’ve seen happen in that time, business and town leaders credit Murphy’s enthusiasm, vitality, creativity and sense of community in forging an enviably active, mutually supportive membership. “She’s just a fabulous spokesperson for the businesses, the community, the town itself,” Jones said. “She just loves New Canaan.”

Asked about the change herself, Murphy said one touchstone for what’s happening is the fact that one new business here, Mrs. Green’s, contacted the chamber itself (and joined) entirely on its own.

Business

Concerns about Customer Parking Loom as Mrs. Green’s Opens

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On the cusp of its grand opening, Mrs. Green’s is facing concerns from police about a lack of available customer parking in bustling downtown New Canaan. The market, following a soft launch Thursday night, opens Friday in the former post office building at the corner of Pine and Park Streets. Capt. Vincent DeMaio said this week that he’s discussed the problem with leadership at Mrs. Green’s. A garage underneath the store has about 30 spaces, but those likely will need to go to store employees, DeMaio said. “They assured me that they will keep things clean and I assured them that there probably will be plenty of fistfights in the Walgreens parking lot, because that’s going to be the natural place for everyone to park, because there will be nowhere else to park,” DeMaio said at Wednesday’s Police Commission meeting, held in the police department’s training room.

Business

Meet ‘Garden Fresh Baby,’ Launching Friday in Mrs. Green’s New Canaan

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Though Marna Altman for eight years had been caring for kids professionally as a preschool teacher, she’d never cooked for others until she had her own children. Originally from Scarsdale, NY, Altman moved up to Westport for her husband’s job a few years ago and—while staying home to raise their two young kids—developed a passion for keeping the children’s diets chemical-free. The baby food Altman found in most markets weren’t living up to her own standards, so she started shopping farmers markets and making it herself. “And from that experience we had a lot of friends and family who were really interested with us supplying them with baby food and making it for them, and then it kind of just became a business from there,” recalled Altman, 32, CEO of Garden Baby Fresh LLC. In just one year, the company has grown its locally sourced, all-organic baby food and toddler meals business—with repeat customers and even out-of-state mail orders—to the point where Altman can start to envision a national presence.