Planning & Zoning Commission members in a recent discussion said they’re impressed with the proposal to replace an office building with a nursing home at the office park on Parklands Drive.
Parklands Office Park LLC is proposing to replace one of its two office buildings on the 7.9-acre Parklands Drive site (located off of Old Kings Highway North near the Exit 13 entrance to I-95 North) with a 105-unit nursing home, with 27 units in a “memory care” facility for people who have lost their memory and need to be kept from wandering.
The new facility would have more parking than the minimum demanded by zoning regulations, and it would result in less traffic than the current office building would have if it were full, according to a presentation developers made to the board. A conservation easement would be put in place for an area at the southern end of the site.
Developers also said they worked with neighbors to allay concerns about the development, which would result in more of the parcel being covered with a building and parking lot space.
“They’re to be commended” for planning for more than enough parking at the site, said P&Z Chairman Susan Cameron at a March 8 meeting. She noted that at public hearings there had been no objections from the neighbors, who in the past have been “keenly aware of what happens” in their neighborhood.
Commission Member Richard DiDonna said he liked the fact that the owners were proposing to change the zoning district to include a residential use.
Craig Flaherty, a principal at Redniss & Mead, told the commission that 231 parking spaces are currently at the office park, and the proposal would result in adding three more. Some parking would be shared between the nursing home and the remaining office building, the 34,840-square-foot “Building 3” or “3 Parklands Drive” (there is no building named “Building 2” on the two-building site).
“It clearly meets a town need for residents who want to continue living in Darien, also folks in Darien who want their parents or grandparents in a place near them,” Flaherty said.
The new building “will provide increased tax revenues to the town with little impact on town services,” said Mark DePecol, a principal of Senior Living Development LLC, a consulting firm hired to look into the feasibility of starting a nursing home at the site.
The 23,649-square-foot office Building 1 at the site would be stripped down to its superstructure, then rebuilt and expanded to the south, Flaherty said. The developers propose raising the height of the building by about 5 feet higher than the current building’s 28 feet (they’re asking to be allowed to raise it as high as 35 feet). Since the building would be extended over land that slopes down, it would be higher from the ground at that end.
Parking, neighbors
Loading facilities for the building and trash containers would be located on the side facing the rest stop, which would keep down the noise level for neighbors when trucks load or unload. The longer building would also act as something of a sound barrier between Fairmead Road homes to the east and the highway to the west, he said.
About 40 people would be expected to work in the new building, some directly for the nursing home and some working for business vendors providing various services.
Most residents of nursing homes don’t have cars, and they seldom leave the property, DePecol said. When they do, he said, they tend to be driven in a shuttle van provided by the nursing home.
When ambulances need to rush to the site, Flaherty said, the noise from sirens might be cut down when they enter the property, keeping it more quiet for neighbors.
The developers have spoken with neighbors and agreed to remove some trees in danger of falling as well as plant more native species and repair a stone wall in the buffer zone on the eastern side of the property, abutting the property of neighbors on Fairmead Road.
The applicant “is willing to consider installing/enhancing the sidewalk system [along Old Kings Highway North] from the Post Road to the site,” Darien Police Capt. Donald Anderson wrote in a document that’s part of the file for the project at the Planning & Zoning Department.
Open space
The building used for the nursing home needs to be large enough to take advantage of some economies of scale in order to be financially viable, Flaherty told the commission, and that’s why the developers want to increase its size. Typical new nursing homes serve 90 to 120 seniors, he said, and the proposed 105 units would be a size right in the middle of that.
Since more of the lot would be used for building space and parking, Flaherty said the developers are proposing that for every additional square foot of that kind of land coverage, double that amount of space would be set aside as a conservation easement.
The site extends south to Dunlap Pond and abuts the Sellecks Woods and Dunlap Woods open space owned by the town and Darien Land Trust. At that end of the property, a triangle shaped area of 40,000 square feet would be set aside as permanent open space, Flaherty said.
The 40,000-square foot wedge includes about 8,000 square feet in Dunlap Pond itself, he said.
Nursing homes nowadays
The average age of nursing home residents is 85, and they tend to stay in a nursing home for 3 1/2 to 4 years, DePecol said. A typical nursing home built nowadays will have common areas for community activities, including arts and crafts, and a communal restaurant, although small, efficiency kitchens are used in individual residences.
“Oftentimes, they’re gourmet,” DePecol said of the communal restaurants. “They oftentimes have a little coffee shop, sometimes a wine bar. They’re becoming pretty upscale.” Beauty salons and even woodworking shops are often in the senior living facilities, he said.
A formal application to tear down one of the two office buildings on the site hasn’t been submitted to the commission yet. The property owners have first asked the commission to change zoning regulations to allow for a larger building that would be used as a nursing home. The commission is expected to vote on that proposal at a future meeting.
See the presentations on video
Here are two Darien TV79 videos showing presentations about the project. In each video, the project is the first subject discussed. In the first video, the Parklands proposal (from Jan. 26) takes up the first 49 minutes; in the second (from Feb. 23), it takes up the first 13 minutes (the March 8 video will likely be published soon):
