Thomas Breen photo
West Rock/West Hills Alder Honda Smith with Monica Clark, Iva Johnson, and Von Robinson at City Hall on Monday.
A new music studio, a washer and dryer, a pottery kiln, and more programming for west side youth and seniors alike are one big step closer to coming to a reborn Valley Street community center — now that the alders have formally accepted a $550,000 state grant for “The Shack.”
Local legislators took that vote Monday night during the latest regular bimonthly meeting of the full Board of Alders. The meeting took place in person in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall.
The alders voted all but unanimously to accept three different state Urban Act grants geared towards boosting social services and affordable housing across town. (West Rock/West Hills Alder Honda Smith abstained from the vote because she is on the The Shack community center’s board.)
The state grants that the alders voted to accept Monday included $550,000 for 333 Valley Street Intergenerational Organization Inc. for the rehabilitation of 333 Valley St., which is home to The Shack; $2.5 million to fund a Boston-based affordable housing developer’s plans to build 76 new apartments in the Ninth Square at 300 State St., 742 – 746 Chapel St., and 756 – 760 Chapel St.; and $2 million to a host of ground floor improvements, including kitchen upgrades and a program space redesign, at the Towers senior housing complex at 18 Tower Lane.
Dwight Alder and Community Development Committee Chair Frank Douglass explained before the vote that the city was requesting the alders’ authorization “to simply act as a pass-through for Urban Act funding from the State of Connecticut” for these various projects.
“These funds are an investment in quality educational, physical, mental and social programs and services, affordable housing resources, and structural improvements at locations that provide access to opportunities for all residents,” he said in support of accepting the state grant money.
Click here to read a previous Independent article from January about the initial announcement of the state grant for The Shack.
Thomas Breen photo
Monday night's Board of Alders meeting.
After the meeting, Smith joined fellow West Hills neighbors and Shack supporters Iva Johnson, Monica Clark, and Von Robinson to celebrate the official acceptance of the $550,000 state grant — and to look forward to just how many more lives the reborn community center will be able to touch on the west side of town.
“It’s been a long time coming for this community, which has basically been left in the wings and forgotten about,” Smith said. “We’re seeing the results of what’s happening now, before the money has been given. Of how it has brought the community together. Of how it’s brought a safe place for all, not just for kids, but for everyone” who lives and works in and visits the West Rock/West Hills area.
She said that the $550,000 state grant will “continue to help get the structural portion of the building together,” paying for repairs to the formerly long-vacant building as well as for the construction of a new music studio.
The Shack’s bonding grant request that was included in a submission to the alders by the Livable City Initiative (LCI), meanwhile, indicates that the grant money will also be used for an alarm system, to replace game room and bathroom doors and games, to install a washer and dryer in one of the bathrooms, to install an 18-inch pottery kiln in the senior room, and for the painting of the outside of the building, among other upgrades.
Maya McFadden file photo
Student artists brighten up The Shack in December.
“It is definitely a beacon of light in our community, because it’s been so dark,” said Johnson, who is also a Democratic Ward Committee co-chair for West Rock/West Hills’ Ward 30. For decades, she said, 333 Valley St. was just a “dilapidated place next to the [police] substation.”
Now its “community meetings are strong. The room is filled.”
Smith agreed. “It’s home for everyone,” she said. “It’s not a center. It’s home.”
Click here to read the full aldermanic submission for the $550,000 grant for The Shack. Click here, here, here, and here to read previous Independent stories about The Shack.
Click here to read the full aldermanic submission for the $2.5 million grant for the Beacon affordable housing development at State and Chapel Streets. Click here, here, and here for previous stories about that project.
And click here to read the full aldermanic submission for the $2 million grant for the Towers.