<body><div>The tortuous path to creating affordable apartments on Wall Street reached a milestone Friday with a ceremonial groundbreaking 15 years after the city first entered an agreement to redevelop the location.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=0DqvR6_0wFILW1N00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0DqvR6_0wFILW1N00" width="783" height="864" ><figcaption>Todd McClutchy, president of JHM Financial Group LLC, the firm selected to develop Wall Street Place. (Photo: Harold Cobin)</figcaption></figure>“It has been a long journey, with many obstacles to overcome,” said Todd D. McClutchy, president of JHM Financial Group LLC, the current manager of the project. “We are here to celebrate and acknowledge each and everyone’s participation to get us to this point so we can look forwards and not backwards.”[Video below: Excerpts of remarks at ceremony.]The reformulated project calls for 155 mixed-income apartments in two buildings, occupying parcels at 61 Wall St. and 17 Isaacs St.The buildings’ ground floors will contain over 15,000 square feet of retail and commercial space, McClutchy said. The development will include nearly 200 parking spaces.Clean-up and removal of debris and spoiled construction material from the portion of the building previously built began in February, construction workers at the site said Friday, with new construction beginning about a month ago.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=33E0Em_0wFILW1N00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=33E0Em_0wFILW1N00" width="864" height="591" ><figcaption>The Isaacs Street side of Wall Street Place Friday. (Photo: Harold Cobin)</figcaption></figure>The project was very much a work in progress Friday, with the ceremony on the ground floor of the existing structure enveloped by the roar and clatter of construction, which did not pause for the event.Referencing the flood of 1955, which destroyed much of the Wall Street area, Mayor Harry Rilling told the participants, “This area has been suffering for a very, very long time. And we are so excited that this is going to transform this entire area into an area of which we can be really, really proud.”People need housing, and employers need people who can live and work in the area, Rilling said, explaining the importance of the project.As someone who was born and raised here, said state Sen. Bob Duff (D), “this area has too long been dormant, it’s too long not realizing its potential, and it has too long been an embarrassment to the city of Norwalk. And will go from one of our greatest embarrassments to one of our greatest treasures in a very short amount of time.”During his remarks, Adam Bovilsky, executive director of the Norwalk Housing Authority, said the waiting lists for public housing in the city are “years long” and closed to new applicants. This project, he said, will provide 155 affordable housing units that are simply, desperately needed in Norwalk.This place has been sitting here as a bit of an eyesore seven or eight years, said Gov. Ned Lamont (D) as the ceremony’s closing speaker.“I just love the fact that in the next 18 months you’re going to see it vibrant with young families and a hundred units here, 50 there, compared to what I see going on in the rest of the state,” Lamont said. “McClutchys, thank you, thank you for your vision and what you mean for this state and what you mean for this town.”<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=0iHTXJ_0wFILW1N00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0iHTXJ_0wFILW1N00" width="1560" height="1000" ><figcaption>An artist’s rendition of the proposed design for Wall Street Place. (Photo: Harold Cobin)</figcaption></figure>This was the second groundbreaking for Wall Street Place, which has its origins in a 2004 Wall Street redevelopment plan. The first was in 2015, when construction was started by POKO Partners LLC of Port Chester, N.Y., the city’s then-preferred developer for the Isaacs Street portion of the redevelopment plan.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=3P2BGl_0wFILW1N00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=3P2BGl_0wFILW1N00" width="864" height="626" ><figcaption>Officials at Friday’s Wall Street Place groundbreaking ceremony. (Photo: Harold Cobin)</figcaption></figure>A year later, financing problems caused construction to halt. Over the next seven years, what was built became a deteriorating eyesore, with the exterior of the box-like structure covered in a torn and pealing white vapor barrier called Tyvek. It came to be known as the Tyvek Temple.After the 2018 death of POKO’s founder, Kenneth Olson, at age 58, his brother, Richard Olson, sold land slated to become part of Wall Street Place phases two and three to local real estate developer Jason Milligan for $5.2 million.The property had been awarded to POKO for it to develop, and a Land Disposition Agreement governing its control stipulated the property could not be transferred without approval of the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency. Milligan disputed the validity of the agreement.The situation resulted in five years of bitter and expensive litigation between the city, the Redevelopment Agency, Milligan, and POKO.A jury trial was to begin last March before a settlement agreement was reached between the plaintiffs, Milligan, and co-defendant Richard Olson. The Common Council signed-off on the agreement in April.Meantime, McClutchy and JHM Group entered the picture in 2019, with a plan to finish the stalled project. The Common Council concluded land development and loan recognition agreements with them this past July, enabling construction to begin again.</div></body>

Mountain View, CA

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After years of turmoil, ceremony marks restart of Wall Street Place

The tortuous path to creating affordable apartments on Wall Street reached a milestone Friday with a ceremonial groundbreaking 15 years after the city first entered an agreement to redevelop the location. “It has been a long journey, with many obstacles to overcome,” said Todd D. McClutchy, president of JHM Financial...