Seymour Selectmen voted 6 – 0 Tuesday to sell the former Anna LoPresti School on Maple Street to the Primrose Companies of Bridgeport.
The sale price is $335,000.
John Guedes, of the Primrose Companies, hopes to convert the old building into 30 market-rate apartments.
The sale is contingent upon Seymour land use boards approving a site plan submitted by Guedes’ company. No formal application has been received at this point.
The apartment idea has angered some neighbors, who urged the Board of Selectmen to consider other options. Several urged the board to tear down the old building and turn it into a public park.
Others said the building is bleeding money, and urged the Selectmen to get it back on the tax rolls.
The neighborhood is already densely populated, neighbors said. At the same time, anyone who has checked Craigslist knows there is no shortage of modestly priced apartments available for young professionals in the lower Naugatuck Valley, the demographic Guedes wants to attract.
Neighbors openly worried the apartments will be rented to “low income” residents. Guedes has said he plans to offer market-rate one- and two-bedroom apartments. His apartments will stand out from current Valley apartment options because everything inside will be new, he told the Valley Indy in a previous interview.
A town meeting on the sale was held Tuesday, but not enough people showed up to take the decision from the Selectmen and put it to a public vote.
Annmarie Drugonis, a member of the Board of Selectmen, complained late in Tuesday’s meeting that people were bashing the Selectmen’s decisions without doing any research on the issue. She specifically mentioned the Valley Indy’s Facebook page, where some readers beat up on Seymour’s local legislators earlier this month regarding the LoPresti School, and then again when trees were cut in downtown Seymour.