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Home » Fitness » HPAC votes down part of Life Time Fitness application – The Advocate

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Frontier's Stamford offices in High Ridge Park on Thursday, December 18, 2014.

Frontier's Stamford offices in High Ridge Park on Thursday, December 18, 2014.

HPAC votes down part of Life Time Fitness application

STAMFORD The citys Historic Preservation Advisory Commission shot down a request to rezone the High Ridge Office Park as preservationists look for a way to save the historically significant campus.

The zoning text change request, which would add a health club use to the citys office-park zones, would allow for the property owner at High Ridge Office Park to replace one of its buildings left empty after Frontier Communications relocated its headquarters to Norwalk with a Life Time Fitness, a high-end health club chain.

While the property owner, George Comfort & Sons, is not yet requesting to tear down the vacant building, the text change request before HPAC last week is the precursor to seeking demolition permission, William Hennessy of law firm Carmody, Torrance, Sandak & Hennessey told the commission last week.

In a letter dated Aug. 3 to the citys Land Use Bureau, HPAC chairwoman Lynn Drobbin said the commission unanimously opposed the change, which will be considered by the Planning Board Tuesday, because it may open the door to demolition of this important building.

It may also advance demolition options for the other important buildings in this office complex, as well as similar C-D districts in the community, she wrote.

HPACs land use function is purely advisory. Its decisions are sent to the Land Use Bureau for consideration by the Planning Board and Zoning Board.

The High Ridge Office Park was designed by famed architect Victor Hanna Bisharat, designer of the Landmark Square building in downtown Stamford.

The former Frontier building that could come up for demolition was built sometime between 1967 and 1975.

The State Historic Preservation Office weighed in on the office parks historic significance last month, naming the property as a possible candidate for the National Register of Historic Places.

HPAC would like to note that this building, which is eligible for National Register listing, would qualify for State and/or federal tax credits, Drobbin wrote in her letter to the Land Use Bureau. The commission also recognizes that there may be other options for the owners and encourage renovations and compatible uses that may preserve this building.

While HPAC was laser-focused on saving the Bisharat building, and less concerned with the overall impact of a zoning text change, the application is expected to meet more scrutiny by the Planning Board.

The request is presented as an adaptive re-use under the Mixed Use Campus section of the citys master plan. The Master Plan, a guideline for development in the city, recommends adding new uses to office park districts north of downtown as property owners struggle to rent or sell office space.

Hennessy, the attorney, told HPAC that the property owner has struggled to lease the space since Frontier left, and it has sat mostly empty for about two years. He said the building would require extensive renovations and repairs to make it competitive in the current commercial-office market.

A recent text-change application under the same re-use category that asked to add residential uses to these office parks was shot down by the Planning Board in June.

The application is on the Planning Board agenda for Tuesday. The board will meet at 6:30 p.m. in the cafeteria on the fourth floor of the Government Center.

nnaughton@stamfordadvocate.com; @noranaughton

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HPAC votes down part of Life Time Fitness application - The Advocate

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Home » Fitness » HPAC votes down part of Life Time Fitness application – The Advocate