Attorney Elizabeth “Liz” Suchy of Carmody Torrance Sandak and Hennessey explains aspects of the Maritime Rowing Club’s proposal to the Zoning Commission on Thursday in City Hall.NORWALK, Conn. — The Maritime Rowing Club, being ousted from its Liberty Square location by the state, has found new digs.
The Club has been a tenant for 20 years at Coastwise Boatworks, a Goldstein Place property that is being seized by the Connecticut Department of Transportation as part of the Walk Bridge reconstruction project. Club owners Yan Vengerovskiy and Roman Vengerovski have faced angst as the eminent domain process has moved along, but the Club now has an arrangement to move across and up the Norwalk River to property owned by King Industries, north of Interstate 95.
“King Industries has agreed to allow them go on their property, to create a new development for them, with buildings, some hardscape and parking spaces,” Assistant Planning and Zoning Director Mike Wrinn said at Thursday’s Plan Review Committee meeting.
Roman Vengerovski, in August 2015, said his family is in favor of rebuilding the Walk Bridge but, “We wouldn’t want to come out of this feeling like what we built for the last 20 years has been taken away from us. It’s a horrible feeling.”
King Industries is just north of the Yankee Doodle Bridge, while the Maritime Rowing Club has operated just south of the Walk Bridge, on the eastern shore of the river. Access to the club would be through Jennings Place, off of Harbor Avenue, Attorney Liz Suchy said.
King Industries’ property is about 5 acres, and the club would occupy .75 acres in the northeast corner, she said. There would be two, 2-story tall fabricated steel buildings erected, connected by a cental lobby with an elevator, Suchy and other representatives said.
The club is expected to store its rowing sculls on the ground floor, with training facilities on the second floor, and a permit application for docks has been submitted to the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), she said.
Zoning Commissioner Louis Schulman asked what would happen in the event of a 100-year flood.
DEEP allows boat storage on the lower level, Wrinn said.
“They have a thriving club and they are really excited to use this portion of the river,” Suchy said.
The Commission expects to have a public hearing on the proposal in January.
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