Hit with a spray of opposition to their proposed Laundromat, the Sproviero brothers left a community meeting disheartened, but not dissuaded from their plans.
Frank (at left in photo) and Louis Sproviero, owners of Precision Dry ‘n’ Wash, hope to open a new branch of their chain Laundromat at the corner of Whalley Avenue and the Ella Grasso Boulevard. They showed up Whalley Avenue police substation Tuesday night to share their business plans with the Whalley Edgewood Beaver Hill Management Team. (Click here and here for background stories.)
Tuesday was the first night the brothers came face to face with the city’s most active, and often impassioned, management team. Louis, the owner of the company, wore a blazer and khakis. Frank wore a green suit. They waited in the back of the room as the police chief talked for an hour.
The brothers plan to open a shop with 40 washers and 40 dryers in the 3,900-square-foot structure next to the new Walgreens. The plan requires approval before the Board of Zoning Appeals to ensure that there is sufficient parking. At neighbors’ request, they pushed back an appearance before the BZA so they could share plans with the group before seeking city approval.
Going into the meeting, the brothers knew they would be met with at least one leader, Edgewood patroller Eliezer Greer, bent on preventing them from washing a single load of clothes at the corner property. They found few allies in the crowd.
The project’s architect, Arthur Ratner (at right in photo at top of this story), presented the plans to a room packed with three dozen neighbors. Plans show 13 parking spaces for the Laundromat, and 86 total for the plaza. The brick, lights and awnings have been designed to match the Walgreens next door, he said. The style will be in keeping with rules of the Whalley Avenue zone overlay, which prohibits certain design elements such as having too much fake stucco.
The facility would have 10 seats. The basement would be used only for storage, Ratner said. When he wrapped up a brief presentation, objections poured forth.
Kenny Chan, owner of the K‑C Laundromat, stood up to defend his family-owned business from competitors who he said would drive him out of town. He said his customers rely on his prices that haven’t changed in nine years.
“If you put me out of business, you just hurt them, too,” protested Chan.
The Sproviero brothers countered that their prices are higher than Chan’s, so penny-pinching customers might prefer to stick with the mom-and-pop store. They said their store at the Shaw’s Supermarket plaza is overcrowded, and demographics show a need for another Laundromat further up Whalley.
The crowd didn’t agree, however.
Greer pulled out a color photo, blown up on posterboard, showing the brothers’ Laundromat at the Shaw’s Supermarket plaza, with lightbulbs out and a shopping cart left by the door.
“These aren’t the kind of folks we want in our neighborhood,” declared Greer. His group, the Edgewood Neighborhood Association, has hired a lawyer to fight the proposal at the BZA. The lawyer is prepared to take the battle to Superior Court, the rabbi threatened.
Next on his feet jumped John Vuoso, head of the Whalley Avenue Special Services District.
“We’re trying to spark economic growth,” he argued. “We put you in there, we’re going to kick him out — is that economic growth?”
Two aldermen added their piece to the mix.
“I’m disappointed that we couldn’t do any better here,” said Beaver Hill Alderman Carl Goldfield, the president of the board. “We’re trying to improve the street.”
Beaver Hill Alderman Moti Sandman agreed: “Why are we making another strip mall on Whalley Avenue?”
“We’re trying to bring back the Avenue, and this isn’t what we want,” agreed Nadine Herring (pictured), chair of the Whalley Avenue Revitalization Committee. However, she cautioned the room that if neighbors want to influence which tenants get selected, “we can’t wait 11th hour” to protest the plans. Precision Wash ‘n’ Dry already has a lease with the building’s owners, according to the brothers.
The neighborhood should think ahead about what it would like to see in the space and help recruit tenants that match that vision, Herring said.
A 45-minute discussion ended with neighbors like George Rose volunteering to show up at the BZA to protest the proposal. “If you have a Laundromat, there’s going to be people hanging around, and they won’t be hanging around up to no good,” he reasoned.
The Laundromat team packed up its bags and headed out the door.
Pausing on the street corner for a minute, their attorney, Anthony Avallone, pointed out that whether or not neighbors want a Laundromat there has little bearing on the question being decided by city zoning powers.
“The only legal issue before the Board of Zoning Appeals is the sufficiency of parking for a legal, permitted use,” he said. “These folks are talking about use.”His clients plan to go forward with the plans at the Oct. 7 BZA meeting, he said.
Louis Sproviero, whose company owns 17 Laundromats in Connecticut and Massachussetts, said he’d never experienced such resistance to bringing some washers and dryers into a neighborhood.
“It’s disheartening to feel like there’s a group of people that don’t want a Laundromat here,” he said.
Usually, people welcome a new Laundromat because it’s meeting a need, added Frank Sproviero. “Usually, the reaction is, ‘How soon can you get it in?’”