A Virginia developer wants to turn a bleak old factory property a block from Westville Village into a luxury apartment complex looking something like this. First he needs approval for a permit from the City Plan Commission when it meets in an emergency session Tuesday morning. Neighbors are watching with a wary eye.
The developer is Timothy Mulcahy of Vienna, Virginia-based Metropolitan Development. He wants to build 293 market-rate apartments on nine acres that used to house New Haven Manufacturing by the West River.
Most of the factory buildings have come down on the property. Metropolitan has begun doing preliminary environmental clean-up work.
But the developer faces a Dec. 31 deadline to keep his financing in place. He needs to show the project is on track by obtaining new building permits. (The project has “mezzanine financing.”) That’s why City Plan has agreed to meet at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday on City Hall’s fifth floor to vote on giving the developer a soil erosion and sediment control permit. That will enable him to obtain a building permit to put in footings and foundations.
But City Plan is holding off until after the new year on approving the developer’s larger plan. That’s because of a longstanding controversy about the project, one involving a vocal group of neighbors.
The project was originally approved more than two years ago when someone else owned the property — high-flying developer Bob Matthews. Matthews struck a deal with City Plan and with the neighborhood.
The neighborhood worries that the new developer will change that carefully crafted compromise struck with Bob Matthews. Matthews owned the 90-year-old New Haven Manufacturing factory on the site. He closed down the factory (even though he previously got city and state job creation loans for the project). He wanted to put in 348 market-rate apartments to attract empty nesters as well as young singles who could drive to jobs in Fairfield County on the nearby Merritt Parkway.
He needed permission to put in so many apartments on land emptying out on an already crowded street with only one lane of traffic in each direction. He agreed to use high-quality materials like brick in the construction. He also agreed to preserve and renovate the historic front portions of the factory complex, while tearing down other parts of it.
In return the city agreed to designate the land a “planned development district” that allows the 293 apartments, more than usual under zoning laws.
Matthews had to unload the property after getting caught up in the corruption scandal involving his buddy John Rowland, Connecticut’s jailed former governor.
The new owner, Metropolitan, was Matthews’ former partner on the project. It asked City Plan for permission to use vinyl clapboard instead of brick on the outside. Metropolitan also wanted to lower the slope of the roofs to minimize unused space, change some window shapes, and alter decorative balconies.
Neighbors fear an eventual college dorm on the property instead of a stable housing complex. They’ve hired a lawyer, John Gesmonde, to represent them before City Plan.
“The community is really committed to the standards that we agreed to with the [previous] developer to develop a long-term asset rather than a long-term drain,” said Westville activist Thea Buxbaum.
Neighbors planned to speak at a City Plan hearing on the matter last week. But the matter was tabled because of an error in the public notice the commission posted. That’s why a special meeting has been scheduled for this Tuesday.
Because it has “mezzanine financing” for the project, the developer needs to show it’s making progress at various steps — in this case, receiving a new permit to continue preliminary work dealing with soil erosion— to keep its financing. The deadline for the permit is Dec. 31.
City Plan Director Karyn Gilvarg said the commission agreed to give a narrow permit for the project to enable the financing to stay in place, while putting off the larger issues for a future meeting. She said her staff has made it clear that the developer will not receive permission to alter the original deal struck with Matthews on building standards.
“They’ve gotten the message that it wasn’t going to fly,” Gilvarg said. She said Metropolitan has withdrawn its request for the design alterations. The two sides will meet to discuss design after the new year, she said. “We will strongly encourage him to contact people in the neighborhood,” Gilvarg said.
Metropolitan’s Mulcahy and his local lawyer, Michael Milazzo, couldn’t be reached for comment.
PDD Turnaround
One irony: The neighborhood has hired attorney John Gesmonde to push the city to make the developer abide by the original PDD (Planned Development District) plan. The same lawyer successfully sued the city to have new PDDs declared illegal.
“The PDD is an extraordinary zoning tool. I am against it” in principle, Gesmonde said. “But in this case I go with my client… The people have an ultimate weapon in terms of the PDD” to make sure a quality project is built.
Metropolitan did not buy the front southern corner of the property that houses the saved portion of the factory. A new Woodbridge-based entity called “DP5 LLC” took control of the property in April. Land records list a Donald Perry as a member of the corporation. The same Donald Perry was vice-president of the previous Bob Matthews-run corporation that owned the land. Perry couldn’t be reached to reveal his plans for that building or to say whether Bob Matthews remains involved. According to land records, DP5 LLC received a $2.5 million mortgage for the property from a Hilary Musier of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.