A Google Maps image showing 501 E. Main St.
ANSONIA – The former Farrel Corp. Processing Lab at 501 E. Main St. could become home to a mixed-use development of 127 market-rate apartments and retail/commercial space.
That’s according to a site plan application submitted to the city Oct. 25 by New York-based Shaw Growth Ventures.
Shaw president Vasilios Lefkaditis gave a brief overview of his plans Monday (Oct 28) during a Zoom meeting of the Ansonia Planning and Commission. Lefkaditis said this would be the third and final phase of Shaw’s Bella Vista Apartment project.
The third phase calls for 127 market-rate apartments to be built in the vacant, nearly 90,000-square-foot, five-story building at 501 E. Main St., and the attached, 127,000-square-foot warehouse in Building #70 at 65 Main St. The proposal also includes 156 parking spaces, utilizing parking along E. Main Street and a municipal parking lot on W. Main Street.
There would also be 15,000-square-feet of first floor retail/commercial space. A 40- to 50-foot-wide courtyard which sits between the buildings at 501 E.Main St. and 153 Main St. would be landscaped and made open space for tenants, according to Lefkaditis.
The first two phases of Shaw’s Bella Vista apartments were completed in July 2022 and September 2023. The first phase converted the long-vacant Palmer building at 153 Main St. into a four-story apartment building with 44 market-rate apartments. The second phase converted the formerly vacant Ansonia Technology Park, or ATP building, at 497 E. Main St. and 165 Main St. (the former Wells Fargo Bank drive-up) into 48 market-rate apartments.
The commission accepted the third-phase application and referred it to city zoning staff for review. Shaw will need to come back before the commission with a detailed site plan showing floor plan layout, utilities, parking, landscaping, exterior elevations, among other things required in the city’s center zone district, according to Ansonia’s city planner David Elder.
Elder said the mixed-use development Shaw is proposing is part of Ansonia’s city center zone and is a permitted use. Shaw is seeking a change in use for the property from industrial to mixed-use development of housing/commercial/retail which Elder said can be acted upon at the same time the commission acts on a full site plan.
The commission’s acceptance of the application includes a 35-day extension, which Commission Chairman Jared Heon said was done to allow staff additional time to review the application and site plan, as well as for the applicant to provide any additional information required prior to a vote of the commission to accept or deny the proposal.
“This was the first time we (the commission) are seeing this major development so you can understand this is a work in progress and will not be an immediate approval or quick process,” Heon told the Valley Indy after Monday’s meeting.
Lefkaditis said if the site plan is approved, construction would take about 12 to 15 months to complete.
