One year ago today, downtown Shelton was drastically altered by a fast-moving fire that leveled a four-story building off Howe Avenue and left nearly 30 people homeless.
Twelve months later, the family who owns the building is readying plans to replace it which will soon be sent to city land use officials, their lawyer said Monday.
Meanwhile, the state’s Red Cross will honor firefighters who responded to the blaze — and led a months-long effort in aid of those displaced by it — at a “Community Heroes” event this month.
The Fire
The fire — the cause of which was ruled undetermined — began around midnight between Jan. 5 and Jan. 6 in the building’s basement, investigators believe.
“Undetermined” is often used by fire marshals when the damage is so thorough there’s no way to get a definitive cause.
Firefighters were initially dispatched to the building on a report of a fire alarm, according to radio transmissions, but arrived to find its first-floor businesses flooded.
The problem was initially diagnosed as a broken sprinkler pipe, before smoke started filling parts of the building.
Firefighters quickly switched into get-everybody-out-of-the-building mode.
Most of the building’s 28 residents made it out alone through thick smoke which filled the hallways as flames began to consume the 19th-century wood frame structure.
Firefighters from Shelton and Derby rescued five residents via ladders or by carrying them out, Shelton Fire Department Chief Fran Jones said Monday (Jan. 5).
More than 100 firefighters from throughout Shelton, Derby, Ansonia, Stratford, and Monroe would eventually respond to the scene. Crews from even farther afield responded to cover firehouses in Valley communities.
Article continues after photos.
Though a handful of residents were treated and released for smoke inhalation, none were seriously injured.
“It was an overwhelmingly successful rescue that there was no loss of life with such a rapidly moving fire in the wee hours of the morning,” Jones said.
The flames destroyed nearly the entire building in short order, with most of its four floors pancaking in on themselves into a pile of smoldering rubble.
A portion of the building that housed two eateries — Liquid Lunch and Joy Lee Chinese restaurant — still stand, but suffered damage from water and smoke.
Article continues after drone video of the damage via the Youtube page of the website FiregroundImages.com.
The Aftermath
In the hours after the fire the building’s residents were sheltered temporarily at the nearby Echo Hose Hook & Ladder volunteer fire company on Coram Avenue.
In the ensuing weeks the firehouse would become a hub of activity to find permanent shelter, as well as things like clothes, food, and furniture for those displaced.
Usually, Jones said, organizations like the Red Cross shoulder the burden of helping people displaced by fires in the immediate aftermath.
“Then it pretty much ends there,” he said.
Not so with last year’s blaze.
Echo Hose put out a call for help via social media.
The response was overwhelming — the city’s ambulance corps, the rest of its fire companies, as well as a bevy of community organizations joined in sounding the call for help.
“The community in general just came together during the winter months when they saw need,” Jones said, singling out Echo Hose firefighters Kevin Lantowsky, Chris Jones, Capt. Mike Plavcan, and Plavcan’s girlfriend, Kristen Ostrowski, for spearheading the relief effort.
The Echo Hose Hook & Ladder Co. 1 will be honored as a “Spirit of the Red Cross Hero” Jan. 30 at the organization’s annual “Community Heroes” breakfast in Stamford for the efforts made by members after the blaze.
“They went above and beyond to do the best they could to help out,” Jones said.
The community response was so great, he said, that some of the donations went to many more people than just the residents made homeless by the fire.
New Plans
Meanwhile, the property sits much as it did about a month after the blaze, with a chain-link fence cordoning off a pit where the building’s basement used to be full of dirt, glass, bricks, and cement chunks.
But action could be coming to the site sooner rather than later.
The building’s owners are preparing plans to present to the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission to replace it.
The 0.4‑acre property is owned by Ralph Matto, a local builder.
Matto’s son, Joseph, is an architect. Months after last year’s fire he presented rough plans to the PZC’s downtown subcommittee for a mixed-used building with apartments and retail space at the site.
Click here for a recap from the Shelton Herald.
The lawyer who represented the Mattos at the meeting, Dominick Thomas, said Monday that the family will be giving an application to the city “within a relatively short period of time,” while not committing to a specific timetable.
“Right now it’s in the hands of the people who have to draw the (detailed) plans up,” he said.
Joseph Matto said Tuesday that he plans to submit an application to the PZC toward the end of February.
Basic plans for the building presented to the PZC subcommittee are embedded below.
Though the plans show some changes to the building’s layout, the basic components — retail on the ground floor, with apartments above — remains the same.
The plans for the building — called “The Phoenix Apartments” in an apparent nod to mythology — also show Liquid Lunch and Joy Lee returning to their former spaces.
Thomas said the status of a handful of other businesses formerly housed there — among them a convenience store and a tarot card reader — isn’t quite as clear.
Asked whether the plans would be impacted by a relocation of City Hall to nearby city-owned space downtown — floated in October by Mayor Mark Lauretti as a possibility — Thomas replied as predictably as a land use attorney possibly could.
“If they did that, this would be perfectly compatible,” he said.
The florist has moved across the bridge into Derby, at the intersection of Elizabeth and Main streets.
