Best of 2005 Awards

Stonington Commons

Award of Merit: Adaptive Reuse

For more than a decade, various suitors proposed plans for the redevelopment of a vacant mill complex on a five-acre parcel with dramatic views of Stonington Harbor.

The site on historic Water Street in Stonington, Conn., carried considerable baggage, including contamination and a host of fiercely protective neighbors who resisted any proposal that would compromise the historic character of the complex. Several development teams left empty-handed.

However, the perseverance of the eventual developers, Seth Weinstein of Hannah Real Estate Investors of Stamford, Conn., and Charles Mallory of Clearview Investment Management of Greenwich, Conn., led to Stonington Commons, a $40 million mixed-use complex that addressed the site's problems with aplomb and earned the admiration of the Best of 2005 jury.

"From factory to residential and commercial space, it's a great site," one juror said. "It's the biggest improvement of all in terms of what the site was to what it is now."

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Even as the 175,000-sq.-ft. mixed-use complex respects the original structural elements and materials, it has adapted the industrial buildings for a new use as condominiums and live-work units. The mix of historic renovation and new construction - including seven new single-family homes, a yacht club, marina, and 800-ft.-long publicly accessible waterfront walkway - is substantially complete, with the condominium owners slated to move in last month and full occupancy planned for early next year.

The rehabilitation focused on existing brick and granite structures that form an L shape fronting Water Street. Some of the structures in the complex are nearly 200 years old, with the oldest being a foundry for the War of 1812.

Later, the complex housed factories to produce horseshoe nails, rifles for the Civil War, textile machines, gun turrets and submarine parts for World War II, and finally molds for plastic bottle manufacturers. By the time the facility shut down in 1990, it boasted a hodgepodge of architectural styles and a collection of environmental contaminants.

While the waterfront location was the primary draw for developers, it also created geotechnical and flood plain concerns and required designs for extreme wind loads.

The developers decided early on to preserve historic elements of the original buildings. Even when a fire on the site destroyed most of the complex in 2003, just after project crews had finished environmental remediation work, the team stuck to the designs it had hashed out with Stonington officials and residents.

New York-based Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners incorporated as many of the existing materials as possible in the design. The project team salvaged granite from the 1849 Trumbull Building and set up a makeshift stone-cutting operation in the solid-granite 1812 foundry building, which lost its roof in the fire but remained standing. Crews from Hodess Building Co. of North Attleboro, Mass., cut the salvaged materials into 4-in. pieces, reusing them to replicate the original construction.

In addition to the salvaged materials, the team also tracked down and eventually procured granite from the complex's original quarry in Rhode Island, resulting in a nearly seamless match between old and new stone. It also matched the brick from the Atwood Building, constructed in 1906, creating a smooth transition between the remaining structures and the post-fire construction.

The end result is "absolutely spectacular," one juror said.

Key Players

Owner: Stonington Water Street Associates (Hannah Real Estate Investors and Clearview Investment Management)

General Contractor: Hodess Building

Architect: Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners

Structural Engineer: Robert Silman Associates

M-E-P: Collective Design Associates

Environmental: Triton Environmental

Land Planning and Landscape Architect: Vollmer Associates

Electrical: Aerial Lighting and Electric

Plumbing and HVAC: Tucker Mechanical

Specialty Masonry: Grande Masonry