Business

Dance Corner Plus, Walter Schalk’s Iconic Dancewear Shop on Morse Court, Closes after 30 Years

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By the time Walter Schalk opened a retail dancewear shop on Morse Court some 30 years ago, his famed dancing school—launched in 1959 with classes held in Ponus Ridge Chapel—already was well established in New Canaan. In fact, Dance Corner Plus at 1 Morse Court never was designed as a money-maker, Schalk said: He just wanted ready accessibility to dancewear for students in his popular program. Yet in recent years, with the rise of Internet shopping and big box stores that have connected with once-exclusive suppliers, that accessibility has become far easier for consumers. And that has prompted the new owner of Dance Corner Plus, Sarah Duffy, to shutter the store, for decades a fixture near the corner of Main Street. “The Walter Schalk School of Dance has been in business for 59 years and it’s been a tremendous success over the years, and I want to thank everybody for their support, including those who have supported Dance Corner, now closed after it was sold to Ms. Duffy,” Schalk told NewCanaanite.com.

News

School Board: No Immediate Increases to Facilities Rental Rates

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Businesses and organizations that rent spaces in New Canaan public schools—auditoriums, gyms and cafeterias, for example—won’t have to worry about an increase in fees until at least July 1, district officials said Monday night. A new system for facilities rentals likely won’t be in place until next spring, and the schools right now are looking at “the implications and impact” of a proposed set of rates that caused some concern recently, Acting Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi said at the Board of Education meeting. “What we [school officials] have thought about, and what I would like to briefly report, is maintaining current rates that we have through June 30 and then beginning the new rates July 1, the new fiscal year, whatever they are going to be ultimately,” Luizzi said at the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. Rentals of school spaces that include gyms, auditoriums, cafeterias and classrooms last academic year ran at a loss of more than $11,000, the district has reported. Luizzi’s comments come on the heels of one proposal that would have divided groups that rent space at the schools into categories such as nonprofits and community groups versus for-profit businesses, and local versus out-of-town organizations.