The Valley Council of Governments and the City of Ansonia have finished cleaning up environmental contamination two former factory sites downtown.
That means developer Duke Realty can finally move forward with plans to transform the properties into a condominium complex, according to city officials.
Ansonia owns the two buildings — at 153 Main St. and 497 East Main St. — and has an agreement to sell them to Duke Realty for $1.5 million.
“We were supposed to have a clean property in order for them to get started,” said Mayor James Della Volpe last week. “We’ve finished our part.”
The city has been in talks with Duke Realty for several years to develop the land.
In 2003, Ansonia chose Duke Realty as its preferred developer for the site, according to the New Haven Register.
Then in 2008, the city sold the property to Duke Realty, contingent on the city doing environmental clean-up at the site.
The two properties back up to each other on the block bordered by East Main Street, Main Street and Kingston Drive.
The Main Street building includes the Senior Center, which will stay in the building under the agreement.
The Clean Up
For the past 18 months, Ansonia has performed clean-up at the site using about $260,000 in grants from the Valley Council of Governments, which oversaw the work.
Arthur Bogen, an environmental planner for Valley COG, said most of that time was spent doing paperwork and getting legal approvals to work on the property.
Officials spent about four months — from June to October 2010 — removing contaminated soil and a boiler building from the land, Bogen said. The contaminants included mostly oil and some metal contamination, he said.
The state and federal government regulate what levels of contamination are acceptable, and Bogen said the site is now clean enough to develop.
“This is an example of how municipalities have to take on so much to prepare sites for redevelopment, but if they have a vision like Ansonia does, and you have a mayor who drives on it like Mr. Della Volpe does, you can get there,” Bogen said. “You can drive through.”
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Downtown Living
In 2006 Duke Realty proposed building 55 condominiums in the two former factory buildings — one that’s three stories high, the other that’s five stories. The proposal would include a landscaped courtyard between the two buildings, and more parking for the tenants.
John Sponheimer, an Ansonia attorney representing Duke Realty, said the developer still plans to move forward with the land purchase and condo plans.
Ansonia forwarded Sponheimer the finished environmental reports this week.
“Duke is definitely still interested in the project,” Sponheimer said. “They’re getting the environmental reports out to their lenders and their environmental consultants now.”
The city’s Planning and Zoning Commission approved a zone change for the site in 2009, but Duke Realty still needs to get approval for the development plans, according to Ansonia’s Corporation Counsel Kevin Blake.
