State and local officials celebrated progress being made on a mixed use redevelopment project in South Norwalk that came to a halt eight years ago. They held a groundbreaking ceremony on an already finished concrete floor.
The irony isn’t lost on developer Todd McClutchy, who is the president of JHM Financial Group, LLC & Wall Street Recap Associates, LLC, but the shovels represent a change, nonetheless.
“The terminology may be not the best one, but it is a groundbreaking,” McClutchy said. “It's a groundbreaking for something new and invigorating that's happening here. So it's the rebirth and recreation of what was stalled and failed previously.”
The celebration comes nearly a decade after construction stopped on a previous development project at 61 Wall Street. The death of the developer threw the project into limbo until recently, when a new developer took over the project.
Now the project, costing $133 million, according to Connecticut Housing Commissioner Seila Mosquera-Bruno, is entering the final stages for at least one building, and 155 housing units will be made available in total, which state officials say, is sorely needed in an area where rents continue to skyrocket.
The event, which happened on Friday, came as construction workers already began to bring up construction materials with a crane, as they hammered nails into place. Mosquera-Bruno said the units won’t be out of reach for most residents.
“These are all affordable units for individuals that are making between 30% of the area median income all the way up to 80% so you have different income brackets, but they will be all affordable,” Mosquera-Bruno said.
The project, according to the developer, will also include more than 10,000 square feet of retail and community space in two buildings, as well as 200 parking spaces.
Much of the structure on 61 Wall Street is already completed, but the last eight years meant some decay of the Tyvek wrapping protecting the structure from the elements.
Locals began to call it “Tyvek Temple”, as the previous developer, Kenneth Olson died in 2017, after construction stopped in 2016, leading to a legal battle over the project.
Since then, the new developer has taken over, and while there are no issues with the structure, it did need a clean up, according to Viking Construction Vice President
“We chased out all the pigeons, thank God nobody was living in here, and took out all the garbage, checked the structural integrity of everything, and now we're going to start putting it back together,” Gaglio said.
Construction of the structure on 61 Wall Street is expected to be completed by the end of 2025.
