Government

New Canaan Playhouse: Private Owner Would Have More Flexibility in ADA Compliance

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A new, private owner of the iconic Playhouse on Elm Street would have more flexibility in bringing the 1923 building to ADA compliance than its current owner—the town of New Canaan—does right now, public works officials say. Anyone who owns the cupola-topped brick structure will be responsible for ensuring it is ADA-compliant, Department of Public Works Director Michael Pastore told the Town Council on Thursday. The difference is that while the town is required to bring the building up to code now, a private owner is allowed to work in ADA upgrades with other renovations, and over time, he said. The Playhouse subject to ADA because the building is “considered a public space—people gather there and the town has the ultimate responsibility as the owner,” Pastore said during the legislative body’s regular meeting. “If we were to sell it off to private developer, they would still be responsible for keeping it in compliance with ADA.

Government

First Selectman: New Canaan Not in Danger of Losing Playhouse

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Rob Mallozzi on New Canaan Playhouse Repairs
Though extensive repairs are needed at the town-owned Playhouse—the DPW has put the figure at $2.1 million, not including abatement—New Canaan is not in danger of losing its iconic Elm Street movie theater, the town’s highest elected official said. In the video above, First Selectman Rob Mallozzi explains how the open question facing town leaders is not whether New Canaan will put money into upkeep, but just where that funding comes from.

Government

‘It’s Pretty Sobering’: Future of Playhouse Uncertain

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New Canaan would need to spend some $2.1 million—with an estimated $450,000 beyond that, for abatement—in order to bring the Playhouse Theatre on Elm Street to safe, structurally sound and ADA-compliant condition, public works officials said Tuesday. The 1923 building needs parts of its roof and brick exterior replaced ($550,00), an elevator and ADA-compliant wheelchair access ($1,120,000), new gutters and drainage system ($200,000) and, perhaps most of all, a new layout for its sprinkler system—currently perched above a layer of insulation in the ceiling, according to Michael Pastore, director of the New Canaan Department of Public Works. “If the sprinklers come on, it’s going to soak that insulation, get heavy and probably bring down the ceiling,” Pastore said while presenting DPW’s budget request (see page 39 here) to the Board of Finance at a meeting held in the Sturgess Room of the New Canaan Nature Center. “That’s the situation we have.”

The figures above do not include contaminant abatement for any capital work needed—Pastore said a consultant hired to assess the structure last year put the figure at $450,000, strictly based on the Town Hall renovation. “It could be more, it could be less,” he said.

Around Town

New Canaan Nature Center, Town, Businesses and Organizations Mark Earth Day 2014 [VIDEOS]

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“Where have those flowers and butterflies all gone

That science may have staked the future on?”

—from Robert Frost’s “Pod of the Milkweed”

 

The migration of monarch butterflies through New Canaan—and everywhere else along the East Coast—is happening less frequently in recent years, to the point where some are calling the insects’ once widely anticipated journey between the Northeast/Canada and Mexico “endangered.”

The major reason, experts say, is a lack of milkweed, which monarch caterpillars feed on. “The butterflies can go to all kinds of flowers for nectar, but the caterpillars can only eat milkweed plants. They’re having a hard time with loss of bio-habitat, so we are encouraging people in town to plant these free milkweed seeds,” Susan Bergen, a volunteer for the New Canaan Garden Club, said Tuesday morning from a table inside New Canaan Library. There, she and Jen Rayher (nee Sillo, a 1994 New Canaan High School graduate), director of membership and volunteers at the New Canaan Nature Center, handed out the seeds (“Got Milkweed?” on the packet) to mark Earth Day here in town. It’s one of several initiatives and events planned by the Nature Center for the next week, which New Canaan’s highest elected official today declared “Environmental Awareness Week 2014Week” (see video below).