Former Convent To Make Way For Condos

A former home to Catholic nuns in Westville could become a home to ​“new urbanites” looking to give up big homes in the ​‘burbs for city living.

Neighbors Wednesday night got their first peek at SEEDnh architect Fernando Pastor’s plans for transforming the long empty, former convent at 345 McKinley Ave. into a complex of nine condominiums.

Part of the St. Aedan Church campus, the convent was built along with a bigger school back in 1957. It has been used sparingly by the church for the last decade, Pastor said. The building, designed by Schilling & Goldbecker, contains 20 small one-bedroom ​“nun’s cells” on three floors, a full height-basement and significant attic space, according to additional information provided by Pastor. It has been up for sale since 2013.

Pastor said he often looks for the building he wants to redesign and finds the developer to fund the project. This time he found partner in Rafael Sanz; Pastor has done projects for two years with Sanz’s Elm Street-based Caritas Capital Partners.

Pastor noticed the potential for the former St. Aedan convent two years ago, and initiated talks with the current pastor, the Rev. Thomas B. Shepherd. Pastor has worked on the renovation of the Yale University president’s house. He also designed Ashmun Flats, which opened at the end of September.

Shepherd and Pastor were able to come to terms within a week of meeting, but the lawyers have taken a year to write the contract. With that process coming closer to completion, Pastor said the project is moving forward.

The early renderings call for maintaining the existing shell of the building and gutting the inside to create nine condominiums. The small chapel connected to the building also will be maintained as a common area for the owners of the new units. There will be onsite parking and Pastor estimates that the only relief the project will need from the Board of Zoning Appeals would be to allow for the conversion from one residential use to another, and a variance of the setback, which would preserve the chapel.

Pastor said that the plans have already been presented to the church community and neighbors who live close to the property, and have been received favorably. He brought the plans to the Westville/West Hills Community Management Team meeting Wednesday night to gather more community input be fore the plans head to the Board of Zoning Appeals and then on to the City Plan Commission.

Neighbors attending the meeting Wednesday night asked about the market for condos in Westville. Pastor, whose last Westville project was the Beecher School renovation, confessed that the market for condos is a bit of an unknown quantity not only in the neighborhood, but citywide.

“No one knows this market [for condos] in New Haven because we have been filling New Haven with rentals,” he said. ​“There is no developer that is doing housing of this type.” Pastor is working on a similar church property to condo transformation on State Street.

Pastor said that there is still some market analysis to be done to determine what people would pay for a condo in Westville, but developers believe that there is a market for such housing particularly for people looking to get out of big homes in the suburb to move to urban centers like New Haven.

Barring any serious hiccups in the process, Pastor estimated that if plans were presented to the BZA by next month, they could be through that process and the City Plan Commission in about six months and construction from there would take about a year.

Chris Heitmann, executive director of the Westville Village Renaissance Alliance, said that the plan might draw some pressure over parking, but since the complex would have its own onsite parking, and most neighbors on that street have long driveways, that shouldn’t be a problem.