NAUGATUCK — The borough and private business owners have agreed to a plan that would allow Naugatuck to tear down a dilapidated building and create more recreational opportunities for the public.
The Board of Mayor and Burgesses agreed Tuesday to a two-page agreement that settles a tax appeal filed by the owners of One South Main Street, LLC., which owns the three-story, white building at 1 South Main St., at the corner of South Main Street and Maple Street.
The agreement drops the new value of the building to $96,000, which will decrease property taxes due on the building. In exchange, the limited liability company will agree to allow the borough to tear down the building.
One of the members of the LLC, Rich Hertel, owner of Rich’s Car Works on South Main Street, will give the borough an easement of 11 feet wide along the Naugatuck River to make way for part of its greenway expansion project.
Hertel will also give the borough access to land that Naugatuck will use as a staging station for cranes or other equipment required to make renovations to the Whittemore Memorial Bridge on Maple Street, which the borough plans to complete between 2014 and 2015, according to the agreement.
The agreement states that Naugatuck has the sole responsibility of tearing down the building. The borough has already accepted a bid of $42,900 to tear down the vacant and blighted building.
Weise Construction of Norwich has offered that bid. They were waiting for the agreement to be signed by both parties. They can now move along with demolition plans within the next couple of months, borough officials said.
Residents and borough officials alike have complained about the building, and Deputy Mayor Tamath Rossi even said it was rumored to have served as a makeshift brothel in recent years. The building has been vacant for more than five years.
Hertel and Charlie Wasoka, owner of American Vintage Furniture, purchased the building last year for the parking spaces it provided and intended to work with the borough on a plan to tear it down because it has become an eyesore.
The building is one of two in downtown Naugatuck that will be torn down in the near future. Borough officials have allocated money for the demolition of 1 South Main St. and for the demolition of 58 Maple St., the rundown building known as Building 25.
The building, which is on the National Registry of Historic Places, is a former office complex of the U.S. Rubber Co., which thrived here for years. Several attempts to save the building have failed and it is now in disrepair, officials say. The borough will tear that down for $96,000 in the near future.
