Office Building Takes Shape

J.P. Maguire Associates is constructing a 7,500-square-foot office building on a one-acre lot next to its headquarters at 17 Berkshire Road. The target date for completion is April 1.

The steel-frame, brick-veneer building will be similar to the existing building but will be entirely office space for lease.

James P. Maguire, company president, said he already has one tenant for the new building. Western Connecticut Federal Credit Union, now located on Church Hill Road, will occupy 3,000 square feet of the Berkshire Road building when it is completed.

“We’re still looking for other tenants,” Mr Maguire said this week. “We had a medical group that was interested, but the new aquifer protection zoning regulations don’t allow it.”

Mr Maguire also owns a 1.25-acre undeveloped lot next to the new building and will build to suit if a tenant is found.

Realtor John Klopfenstein, who is handling the leasing of the space, said his job has been made much more difficult because of the new regulations.

“Obviously, we want to protect the aquifer,” he said. “But a holistic doctor certainly wouldn’t pose a hazard. Even if blood had to be drawn from a patient occasionally, everything is packaged and disposed of according to strict regulations.”

As the regulations are written, medical offices aren’t permitted in the aquifer area, which stretches from Sandy Hook Center all the way across town to the Sand Hill Plaza area, he noted.

“The regulations are very, very restrictive,” he said. “It has made it awfully difficult.  The space has to be for business use, not retail – pure office space.”

The regulations prohibit medical or dental offices, veterinary hospitals, beauty and nail salons, funeral parlors and research or medical laboratories in the aquifer protection district unless such facilities are served by both sewer and water lines. Only a small part of the area has such public utility service.

Last July Mr Maguire and other property owners filed a lawsuit against the Planning & Zoning Commission to challenge the new regulations.  The suit is pending in Danbury Superior Court.