Amy Murphy Carroll

First Selectman: Work To ‘Begin Shortly’ on Former Outback Teen Center

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Work soon will start on long-vacant public building located behind Town Hall that is to be be made ready for a paying tenant, New Canaan’s highest elected official said last week. The former Outback Teen Center “will begin shortly so that the building will be available for July 1,” First Selectman Kevin Moynihan said during the April 9 Board of Finance meeting. The main floor of the building is to be rented to a local dance studio, while the New Canaan Department of Human Services is to move into the ground floor of the building. 

The town has been approved for a state Capital Improvement Program grant covering more than $400,000 for the project, officials said. Finance board member Amy Murphy Carroll noted that although the town had approved funds for engineering and other studies needed ahead of a renovation of the Outback, funding the physical work was to wait until New Canaan knew better just what it would do with Vine Cottage (where Human Services currently is located). Yet given the news about the state grant, Murphy Carroll said, “it’s different now.”

Building officials in the past had pegged the cost of renovating the Outback at about $300,000.

Bill Oestmann

Town Officials Approve Contract for Design and Engineering Services at Outback

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Officials on Monday morning voted in favor of a contract that’s designed to kickstart the long-awaited transformation of a public building behind Town Hall from a defunct teen center to a useful, rented commercial space. The Board of Selectmen voted 3-0 to approve a $44,000 contract with Woodbury-based Gary Numberger, Architect LLC for design and engineering services in connection with the former Outback Teen Center. The New Canaan Department of Human Services is to move into the ground floor of the building from its current home in Vine Cottage, while a dance studio rents space on the main floor. According to Department of Public Works Building Superintendent Bill Oestmann, the municipal agency will get a dedicated new entrance from the Town Hall side of the Outback. “It will be more inviting,” he said of the planned new entrance, and the Human Services Department will also move into renovated space with offices and a conference room.

Bill Oestmann

Officials: Local Dance Studio Lined Up for Outback; Finance Board Pushes for Sale of Vine Cottage

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A local dance studio is lined up to rent the upper level of the former Outback Teen Center on a part-time basis, town officials said Wednesday night. With the studio operating from about 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. on weekdays, and restricted from putting on performances there, the town could rent out the space for the balance of the day, generating revenue that—combined with an estimated $35,000 that the studio would pay annually in rent—would help New Canaan cover its maintenance costs for the long-vacant structure, according to Bill Oestmann, superintendent of buildings with the Department of Public Works. (Oestmann declined to name the specific studio, though some of what he said indicated it could be the New England Academy of Dance—see below.)

As long discussed, the lower level of the Outback could be configured into office space for the Department of Human Services, an agency that would leave its current home in Vine Cottage so that that building could be sold, Oestmann told members of the Town Council at their regular meeting. Oestmann said he could foresee parents dropping off their kids and then visiting local businesses. “My hope would be if they are waiting, they can park here and shop downtown, so with an hour or two that their children are there, they can hopefully visit the restaurants and shops in town and spend some money,” he said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. 

By the time the dance studio would start up around 4:30 or 5 p.m., he said, Town Hall workers would be finished for the day and the parking lot there empty. 

“There is a little breathing room in that timeframe,” he said.

Footer Featured Widget

Selectman: More Public Input Is Needed on Future of Vine Cottage, Irwin House

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More public input is needed before New Canaan gets closer to funding projects that bring major changes to the use and ownership of town-owned buildings such as Vine Cottage, Irwin House and the former Outback Teen Center, Selectman Kit Devereaux said Tuesday. There hasn’t been any real discussion in public about renting Irwin House to nonprofit organizations, for example, yet a process appears to be underway to start funding work to that end, according to Devereaux. “I am concerned, for instance, that in renovating—and I have no idea how much it would cost to do the full renovation of the Outback,” Devereaux said during the Board of Selectmen’s regular meeting, held at Town Hall. “By doing that I presume it would be a fait accompli to move Human Services over there which then creates a vacant building, and I just think before the Vine Cottage is put on the block, that there should be a lot of public discussion and the public should weigh in, even a referendum.”

Her comments came as the selectmen discussed proposed bond resolutions that are to go before municipal funding bodies and are related to future capital projects. They include $50,000 to plan for the renovation of the lower level at the former Outback Teen Center for office use and $80,000 for similar work at Irwin House.

Board of Finance

First Selectman: Tenant Lined Up for Former Outback Teen Center

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New Canaan’s highest elected official said last week that the town believes it has a tenant lined up to rent the upper floor of the long-vacant former Outback Teen Center building behind Town Hall. The town also is “working on a proposal to move Human Services to the lower level of the Outback,” First Selectman Kevin Moynihan told members of the Board of Finance during their special meeting Oct. 23. “We think we have a private renter for the upper level,” he said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. “We will make that building operate on two separate levels independently.