The redevelopment of the Actor’s Colony shopping center on Roosevelt Drive continues, with a new Chaves Bakery and Deli scheduled to open in the next few months.
The bakery, which already has a relatively new location in Shelton, will occupy the corner space of the newly-built shopping center on Roosevelt Drive, according to John Guedes, who co-owns the property.
The bakery is the second business to occupy the new shopping center, built at the site of the former Actor’s Colony catering hall, which was destroyed by a suspicious fire in July 20, 2002.
The first business to open there, in March, was a computer sales and repair shop called Tech Stop.
Dave Ladasky, store manager at Tech Stop, said Tuesday it is good to see another business come to the shopping center.
“It will be bring some more customers in hopefully,” Ladasky said.
The bakery will offer a full range of baked products, including Portugeuse breads and pastries, made at the Chaves factory on State Street in Bridgeport, according to Geudes.
John Chaves, owner of Chaves Bakery, did not return a telephone call.
Guedes said the bakery in Seymour is part of John Chaves’ plan to branch out into the region with bakery stores that get their product from his bread factory in Bridgeport.
A Chaves Bakery & Deli store opened on Bridgeport Avenue in Shelton earlier this year. Another opened in Monroe. There will most likely be others in the near future, he said.
“You don’t see many bakeries in the towns anymore. Today the supermarket is everybody’s bakery,” Guedes said.
The location is solid. The shopping center is just one of a handful of commercial spots between Derby and Seymour on Roosevelt Drive/Route 34.
Thousands of vehicles pass by each day.
The plans are on file at the Seymour Fire Marshal’s office. They show a bakery and deli occupying 1,595 square-feet in the shopping center.
There are a few other empty storefronts in the new shopping center that Guedes hopes to rent soon.
The Chaves development comes as good news to Jon David Szuch, chairman of the town’s Economic Development Commission.
“To have a business as quality-oriented as Chaves Bakery invest into the Town of Seymour even during these trying fiscal and economic times show the high level of confidence that Chaves Bakery places not only in our municipality, but the confidence in themselves as well to invest and look forward for success,” Szuch wrote in a prepared statement.
The shopping center got up and running earlier this year after the land sat undeveloped for years.
Guedes, a partner in Housatonic Valley Realty, LLC, purchased the land at 179 Roosevelt Drive in 2008 for $450,000.
There is a barbecue shop on the back end of an adjoining property.
