In 2008, real estate developer Richard Segal formed Summerview Square L.L.C. and purchased four parcels on West Main and Summer streets in Norwalk, an area that sometimes bore the adjective “neglected.”
The plan was to build a 63-unit rental community known as Summerview Square through Summerview Development Group with Segal serving at its head. Segal is chairman and CEO of Seavest Inc., a White Plains, N.Y.-based private investment management firm focused on real estate, private equity and long-term asset management.
A Nov. 26 celebration marked the project”™s completion.
“It”™s beautiful,” Mayor Harry Rilling said of the completed community. “The area had seen no investment interest and now it”™s thriving and neighborhood home values have increased.”
Instead of unattractive “sidewinder” buildings with a blank side wall facing the street,
Summerview Square townhomes are colonial and Victorian-style buildings that sit just 22 feet from the street and blend in with the neighborhood”™s older two family homes and include long front porches.
The city embraced zoning changes to facilitate Summerview”™s multifamilies and those that might follow by tweaking existing rules within the parameters of a neighborhood”™s ambience. The new zone moves multifamily homes 20 feet closer to the street; requires that front doors face the street, that garages are located on the side or rear; and it encourages front porches.
“I was thrilled when Summerview Development Group and Norwalk architect,
Ray Sullivan put meat on the bones of our new regulation,” said Michael Greene, director of planning and zoning for Norwalk. “When I talk with Standard & Poor”™s, Fitch or Moody”™s credit agencies about Norwalk”™s bond rating, I use Summerview Square as an example of what can be done without investing city money. I tell them how a private developer took an abandoned neighborhood and rejuvenated it, increasing the value of everything around it.”
There are five floor plans in the units still available, with 16 one-bedroom units renting for $1,600-1,800; 12 two-bedroom units with rents of $1,800-$2,500; and four three- bedroom units with rents of $2,500-2,700 per month. There are also four designated affordable apartments.
