A New Canaan resident who owns two adjacent properties on Burtis Avenue is listed as the managing principal of a limited liability company that last week bought a parking lot behind what’s commonly called the ‘SNET Building’ at Cherry and Main Streets downtown.
The ‘Telephone Co. Lot.’ Credit: Terry Dinan
According to a property transfer recorded April 16 in the Town Clerk’s office, SNET dba Frontier sold 140 Main St./lot 2—listed as unimproved land—to Cherry Lot LLC for $625,000.
Connecticut Secretary of the State records show that Robert Cuda of New Canaan is the managing principal of the purchasing LLC.
He and his family own numbers 21 and 25 Burtis Ave. under different companies, according to local tax and state business records. Located in the Business A zone, those two properties total .3 acres combined.
The parking lot has been on the market since November 2016. It isn’t clear what the new owner plans to do with it, or whether those plans will incorporate the adjacent properties.
Cushman & Wakefield in promotional materials for the parking lot (and telephone company building itself, which had been listed separately) touts its “prominent site with access to ample parking,” “exceptional demographics” and “outstanding regional accessibility.”
“The property’s location in New Canaan’s fashionable ‘Town Center’ sets it amid numerous upscale boutiques and national retailers, such as J. Crew, Ralph Lauren and Vineyard Vines, and makes it a prime suburban location for both retail and residential uses,” Cushman & Wakefield said. “The appeal of the property’s location is enhanced by its proximity to the nearby high demographic towns of Darien, Wilton, Westport and Ridgefield, the region’s primary commuter routes and mass transportation, and major Fairfield County employers.”
The so-called “Telephone Co. Lot” is leased by the town and used for 18 permitted parking spaces.
Asked about the property transfer, First Selectman Kevin Moynihan said during a media briefing Thursday that he thought the new owner would develop the property “so we will have to lose those spots.”
That would set back New Canaan’s efforts to create more parking in town. Plans include changing some metered spaces at Talmadge Hill to permit spots, possibly expanding that lot north toward the Merritt Parkway and pursuing a parking deck of some kind at the Lumberyard Lot.
Moynihan said he also met last week with officials from Cranston, N.J.-based Boxcar, a company whose services include helping private property owners offer parking for commuters via a website that takes reservations and processes payments.
Cuda also is principal of ownership LLCs of a building on the north side of Burtis Avenue, at number 20, and of 87 Main St., formerly home to Thali Restaurant, purchased for $1.7 million in December.
Where was the Town? 18 spaces for 625,000 is less than 35,000 per space and the cost estimate on the Locust Lot proposal was 42,000 . Meanwhile P&Z only charges 10,000 to 17,500 to waive required parking spaces. What’s wrong with this picture??