Business

P&Z Approves Optometrist Use at Former Pet Valu Space Downtown

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The Planning & Zoning Commission at its most recent meeting approved a change of use for a vacant commercial space on Forest Street, formerly occupied by pet store chain Pet Valu. The 1,875-square-foot property at 21 Forest St. sits next to Green and Tonic, and has remained empty since Pet Valu shut down 358 of its stores across the nation, facing challenges brought on by the pandemic. There has been little news about the building’s use until July, when Paul Tully, a representative of the building’s owner, brought a change of use request to P&Z for the building’s designation to be changed from retail to service establishment. On an application, Tully states that he has a tenant who has signed a lease to open an optometrist practice at the location, selling “optical retail products, i.e. glasses, sunglasses, and related material with limited optometric services.”  

Renovations for the building are still underway, but the fire marshal has already approved several features such as the building’s sprinkler system, Tully said during P&Z’s July 26 meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. 

It will be ADA-compliant, and include parking spaces in the rear, he said.

Business

Town Resident Seeks P&Z Approval for Boutique Commercial Gym at Home

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A homeowner in eastern New Canaan is seeking permission to operate a boutique gym as a business on the lower level of the house. Classes at “The Remix” at 57 Rilling Ridge—a 6,200-square-foot home on two acres, tax records show—are capped at four clients per session, according to an application filed with the Planning & Zoning Commission on behalf of the property owner by attorney David Rucci of New Canaan-based Lampert, Toohey & Rucci LLC. Under the New Canaan Zoning Regulations, a Special Permit is required from P&Z in order to operate a “Major Home” business (see page 51 here). The applicant is also seeking site plan approval. P&Z is expected to take up the application at its May 23 meeting.

Business

Zumbach’s Plans Second Coffee Shop on Burtis Avenue

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New Canaan’s best-established and locally owned coffee shop is planning to open a second location downtown. 

Zumbach’s Gourmet Coffee, a hub of activity at the corner of Pine and Grove Streets, is planning to open a shop on Burtis Avenue, according to an application submitted to Planning & Zoning. “Doug has leased a space at the above referenced address where he plans to open a second coffee shop location offering an expanded selection of handmade coffees including cold-brew as well as nitro-brew coffees,” Paul Tully of Imian Partners LLC, representing the property owner, said in an April 14 letter to Town Assistant Planner/Zoning Inspector Sarah Carey. Tully referred to New Canaan’s Doug Zumbach, owner of the eponymous coffee shop that also founded the popular car show “Caffeine & Carburetors.”

The commercial building at 22 Burtis Ave. is located in the Business A
Zone. Under the New Canaan Zoning Regulations, site plan approval is required from the Planning & Zoning Commission.

Business

‘Blackbird’ Restaurant Coming to Elm Street

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The owners of Solé on Elm Street are planning a new restaurant called ‘Blackbird’ for the commercial space next door. Planned for a September opening at 105 Elm St.—between The Playhouse and Solé, formerly home to Potpourri and, later, Fat Face—Blackbird will offer a wide range of cuisine that patrons will be able to share, according to Adam Zakka, principal of Z Hospitality Group. “It will be a departure from our sister restaurant next door, which is a restaurant with your typical appetizer-entree-dessert menu format,” Zakka told NewCanaanite.com. 

The new restaurant will be “more progressive” in that the menu will offer more “shareables,” he said. Blackbird also will be “beverage-driven,” featuring “progressive cocktail techniques,” he said, and is expected to offer “a little more late-night life” than Solé. The cuisine could be described as “global,” Zakka said, “not bound to Italian or French or Asian,” and will offer some American-style food in the mix.

Around Town

‘An Enormous Addition to the Town’: New Canaan Museum & Historical Society Unveils Plan for ‘Special Collections Museum’ with Reassembled Millar Studio

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Representatives of the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society last week unveiled plans for a striking new barn-like structure at their Oenoke Ridge campus. The glass-enclosed “Special Collections Museum” will have attached at its rear one of the last–if not the very last—original art studio of a founding member of the Silvermine art colony, according to Nancy Geary, executive director of the NCM&HS. 

Addison Millar’s lean-to-like painting studio—which remains in place on Mill Road more than a century after the artist himself, and his wife, were killed in a railcar accident (1913)—has been generously donated to NCM&HS by the Borglum family, Geary told members of the Planning & Zoning Commission during their March 28 regular meeting. “It is a very rustic building,” Geary said during an approximately 30-minute pre-application presentation to P&Z during its meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “It uses the bark from the mills at the turn of the century when it was built. And we have a plan to disassemble it and rebuild it, and it will be partly enclosed and partly attached to this new building. It will give us space also to have permanently on display rotating paintings by the Silvermine artists.