Petition Drive Aimed At Persuading NSB To Alter Branch Design

By John Voket

While welcoming the presence of Newtown Savings Bank in Sandy Hook Center, several residents have taken up a petition drive to help convince bank officials to augment what they say is a “garish,” and “industrial-looking design more appropriate for an inner-city factory than a home town bank branch.”

Jean Sander of Walnut Tree Hill Road told The Bee this week that she and eight other concerned citizens are circulating petitions and that they have already collectively logged the support of “hundreds” of Newtown residents who agree that a proposed NSB bank branch design for the high profile corner of Glen and Riverside Roads is inappropriate and unacceptable as shown in a single rendering made public in The Bee August 12.

The local Planning &Zoning Commission issued a special permit to developer Verdat Kala for the sweeping project planned for properties at #2, #4, #6, and #8 Riverside Road. Mr Kala is the proprietor of The Villa Restaurant & Pizza at 4 Riverside Road.

In the redevelopment project, the four parcels on Riverside Road would be combined to form one 3.2-acre site. The land abuts the prominent intersection of Riverside Road, Washington Avenue, Church Hill Road, and Glen Road.

A salient feature of the project would be the presence of a Newtown Savings Bank branch office at 2 Riverside Road, on the corner of Riverside Road and Washington Avenue. An existing commercial building there would be demolished to create a site for bank construction.

Ms Sander said she and eight other individuals have been actively seeking signatures on a petition for several days by going door-to-door, as well as staging themselves at key locations in town.

“Last weekend I was getting signatures in Sandy Hook Center, but there wasn’t a lot of traffic,” Ms Sander said, adding that “we have nothing against Newtown Savings Bank, just the garish design of the new branch.”

She said that the petition participants and supporters hope NSB President and CEO John Trentacosta understands there are “more than a few residents who are hoping the bank will consider changing the exterior design to be more conforming with the area.”

“It might be worth the goodwill of the hundreds we know already are opposed to this [design],” Ms Sander said.

Contacted for comment, Mr Trentacosta referred to a letter to the community published last week in The Bee. In that letter, the bank official reminded residents that he too is a Sandy Hook resident.

“As anyone might guess, I like the design of the new commercial building. I believe it accommodates the needs of modern-day banking and business while remaining loyal to the architectural history of commerce in Sandy Hook,” he wrote.

The bank president said in designing the building, NSB contracted with the award-winning Antinozzi Associates architects and Caldwell & Walsh, who built the bank’s Main Street complex.

“They guided us through the appropriate steps for the applications before the town’s architectural review, Inland Wetlands Commission, and P&Z, all of whom approved the application,” Mr Trentacosta wrote. “Most of these processes provided opportunities for public comment.”

Mr Trentacosta also pointed out that, “Sandy Hook Center presently has disparate collection of architectural designs,” and “this project will be completed with character, grace, and charm. The building and landscaping design will be a true asset to our community.”

He noted that a photo of an architectural rendering doesn’t depict well, both in architectural detail and scale the potential finished product. Instead, Mr Trentacosta contends the rendering presents “a building that would appear to be totally out of scale with the rest of the neighborhood. In fact, this building is smaller than some of the newly constructed buildings in the area as well as many of the homes in Newtown.”

The architectural rendering is, to date, the only depiction of the planned building the bank or the developer of the property has released to the public.

Ms Sander said that in the coming days, as she and her associates continue to circulate petitions opposing the bank branch design, she and other volunteers are willing to drive to residents’ homes to obtain signatures.

“This is a factory-looking building more suitable for the inner-city,” Ms Sander said, worrying that if the project is completed, “the first thing you will see as you come into Sandy Hook Center will be this flat-topped mill-type of building that is out of character among the other existing buildings in the area.”