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The Playhouse: P&Z Issues Favorable Report for New Lease/Operator

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The Planning & Zoning Commission this week voted unanimously to make a favorable referral for the town to enter into a new lease for The Playhouse—a key step ahead of the Feb. 9 public hearing where details about the prospective new operator are expected to come out. Under state law, the local P&Z is required to weigh in when there’s a proposed new lease of a public building before the town’s legislative body votes on the lease itself. Following a discussion where P&Z received very limited information about the lease itself—the Commission’s role is to decide whether leasing the building to a new operator is in line with the town’s long-term planning—members voted 9-0 in favor during their regular meeting Tuesday night. Prior to the vote, some commissioners voiced concern that they had no details about the draft lease’s contents. 

“The challenge is we don’t know the particulars of the lease, nor the term,” Commissioner John Engel said.

Business

Fitness Training Business Planned for Vitti Street 

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A new wellness center is planned for a vacant commercial space on Vitti Street. The former site of a dry cleaners and later an apparel company, the first floor at 43 Vitti St. will be converted into a “boutique coach-led training program” under an application before the Planning & Zoning Commission. The new business, which appears from a site plan application to be called “The Strength Collective”—there’s a Stamford-based company under the same name, according to Connecticut Secretary of the State records—offers services “designed to improve mobility, resilience and long-term health for adults,” the application said. “The training model uses small group sessions, personalized programming, and low noise output,” it said.

Country Club of New Canaan

Country Club Seeks P&Z Approval To Alter Parts of Golf Course

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The Country Club of New Canaan is seeking permission from the town to overhaul parts of its golf course. According to a letter submitted to Planning & Zoning on behalf of CCNC, the club is seeking to alter the course’s “18th hole tee and green locations and reconfiguration of the cart paths”—areas interior to the site that can’t be seen from the road. “The driving range will be enlarged, regraded and new netting will be installed,” according to a letter that forms part of an application to the Planning & Zoning Commission, authorized by attorney Stephen A. Finn, a partner at Stamford-based Wofsey Rosen. “A new chipping practice area will be constructed in the place of the greenskeeper house.”

The project “will significantly increase the safety of other golfers from users of the driving range and chipping area,” Finn’s letter said. “The current net protection for the range is inadequate and results in practice shots endangering players on the first and second holes. As a result, it is imperative that CCNC provide additional protection for the current facility.”

It’s also “critical” for the club to start the project in September, Finn said in the letter, because the golf course’s designer and construction firm are both available at that time (and then not until 2027-2028) and also because such a start date would mean wrapping up by December as opposed to an “open construction site” for month.

Elliot Siderides

Property Developer Details Proposal for New Hotel on Locust Avenue

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Town officials on Tuesday night heard the pre-application presentation for a proposed new hotel on Locust Avenue, asking questions ranging from room pricing to the potential impact on traffic flow. Founder and president of New Canaan-based Windward Development, Inc. Elliot Siderides presented the plans for the hotel on behalf of Two Corners LLC., which Siderides called the “contract purchaser” of 49-51 and 39 Locust. Siderides presented to members of the Planning & Zoning Commission during their regular meeting alongside his two sons, John Siderides, Windward’s in-house architect, and Andrew Siderides, Windward’s head of development and construction management. Commissioner John Kriz voiced concerns about the potential impact of the hotel on the streetscape. He listed “issues with loom” and problems if a “building dominates the skyline.” Kriz requested “visuals of the as-built structure from various prominent places in town.”

Elliot Siderides responded to a Kriz question about parking by citing the 115 available spaces throughout the complex. 

“The requirement for a hotel is one [parking space] per room, so 40 of the spaces have to be for the hotel,” he said.

Business

‘Carpet Trends’ Seeks P&Z Approval Ahead of Spring Opening on Main Street

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A family-owned business moving into a long-vacant commercial space in downtown New Canaan is seeking formal permission from the Planning & Zoning Commission to provide its residential and commercial flooring and related services. Carpet Trends is planning to open a satellite showroom at 97 Main St. next month. The former Garelick & Herbs space has been vacant for about eight years. Under the New Canaan Zoning Regulations, P&Z site plan approval is required for retail businesses with a gross first-floor area of less than 5,000 square feet operating in the Retail A Zone (page 77).