ANSONIA – City officials are in talks with a Bridgeport developer regarding plans that could bring 252 apartments to Olson Drive in Ansonia.

John Guedes, president of The Primrose Companies, shared plans and renderings for a potential project on 31-165 Olson Drive which include 252 apartments, 33,000 square feet of retail space, 560 parking spots, and a 2-acre park Monday (July 13).

The 252 apartments include 100 condominium units which Guedes said would be owner-occupied.

The plans have not yet been submitted to the Ansonia Planning & Zoning Commission. Guedes said he has been in talks with Mayor Frank Tyszka’s administration about what they would like to see on the property.

“They believe that a mixed-use, larger-scale development would benefit the downtown redevelopment. And so right now that’s the direction we’re going,” Guedes said.

Guedes’ company purchased the land on Olson Drive from the city for $510,000 in 2022. He originally planned to open a private sports complex on the site in 2023, but environmental remediation issues pushed that plan back by years before causing it to be scrapped altogether.

The cleanup work – stemming from soil that has been contaminated for decades – is now largely done, Guedes said, aside from capping which will be completed when construction happens.

Plans and rendering shared by Guedes show three, five-story buildings on the site, with on-site parking and multiple entrance and exit points along Olson Drive and High Street. The apartments vary in size, with at least 32 studio units, 104 one-bedroom units, and 64 two-bedroom units.

Under former Mayor David Cassetti’s administration, two appraisals said that a much smaller amount of housing could be built onsite. A 2018 appraisal from KF Appraisal said 102 units of housing could be built; a 2021 “review appraisal” from Vincent J. Guardiano said only 34 units were possible, due to a 2014 zoning change.

Guedes said that attorneys involved in the project are working on finding a way to move his project forward.

“They have to make adjustments to figure out how to accommodate the zoning aspect of it. We had a meeting this past week, regarding how to proceed with it,” Guedes said.

The Valley Indy sent an email to the city’s land use office to ask for clarification about how much housing could be built under current rules. 

Varas said there is not currently a timeline estimate for when the proposal could end up before the planning & zoning commission. He said the public will have chances to weigh in before anything is decided.

“They still need to get proper permits, which need to come into the public. They still need to go to planning and zoning when that is the necessary step,” Varas said.

Beginning in 1962, the Olson Drive site was home to a federally owned apartment complex. The outdated buildings started coming down during Mayor James Della Volpe’s administration and continued under Cassetti’s administration.

Is The Process Transparent?

Members of the Ansonia Planning and Zoning Commission have jurisdiction over land use proposals, but the new plans have not been submitted to the commission.

Javier Varas, Tyszka’s chief of staff, said city officials have been talking about traffic and school impact studies with Guedes in recent weeks. Tyszka said in January he would welcome a mixed-use development on the site.

Guedes sent renderings and a site plan to The Valley Indy after an interview July 13.

Vargas said the city’s role in the talks is to answer questions from the developer and to help them comply with zoning regulations, and that the public will have the chance to weigh in through public hearings in front of the planning & zoning commission.

“Just like we would with every developer, if they have questions, they come to us, and then once they’re in the stage to have a final plan or to have a final architecture and they need planning & zoning approval, absolutely,” Varas said.

But the mayor’s office is not supposed to review site plan applications. The planning and zoning commission is supposed to review site plans, in a public process mandated by state law.

Tony Mammone, the head of the Ansonia Republican Town Committee, said the process hasn’t been transparent. He said that, under Cassetti’s administration, updates on Olson Drive were regularly shared with the public.

“Where is the transparency? Everything should have been wide open,” Mammone said. “The Cassetti administration, probably prematurely most of the time, shared renderings of what was going to happen. How many renderings of Olson Drive were shared?”

The Democrats criticized the former Republican administration’s handling of Olson Drive from the start, saying Mayor David Cassetti’s administration gave Guedes a “sweetheart deal.”