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).

Amy Zabetakis

Proposed Brookwood Subdivision: Property Owner Presents Improvements to P&Z

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The owners of an approximately 32-acre property across the street from the Country Club of New Canaan, in seeking a nine-lot subdivision, plan to protect more open space than what’s required by local regulations, their attorney says. The owners of 82 Brookwood Lane—a limited liability company whose representatives, Jim Hoffman and Adam Sherer of property developer SPB Homes, attended the Jan. 28 Planning & Zoning Commission meeting—also have decreased the arc of a driveway coming off of Brookwood following feedback from the New Canaan fire marshal, are in discussion about helping firefighters by creating a “dry hydrant” using a pond on the property, and are looking for ways to improve the existing wetlands, according to their attorney, Amy Zabetakis of Rucci Law Group. “My clients and the team have spent months carefully designing this project to adhere to all of the zoning regulations, environmental standards, and meet the requirements of the subdivision regulations as well as the [Inland] Wetlands Commission’s,” Zabetakis told P&Z during the appointed body’s regular meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. She continued: “We first started discussing the project with the town in August of last year before my clients completed the purchase of the property.