THE BULLETIN (September 8, 2019) — Two long-vacant Main Street buildings will be back in business within six months if all goes according to local developer Asaf Cohen’s plan.

Cohen in August purchased the circa 1847 Main Street Fire Station as well as a two-story neo-classical building next door that had its start as Merchant’s National Bank in 1924. Assessor’s records show he picked up the buildings for $335,000 each from Wang’s Investment Corp., of Stamford, which had owned them since 2002.

The two buildings are part of the Downtown Norwich Historic District, according to National Register of Historic Places documents.

Norwich Community Development Corp. Vice President Jill Fritzsche said the early 20th century building at 65-69 Main St. had been empty for “well over 10 years” following the departure of City Perk coffee shop. The former fire station at 71 Main St. was being used as an artisan’s cooperative before it went dark two years ago.

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THE DAY (August 21, 2019) — Norwich — Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz gave frequent thumbs-up Wednesday during an hourlong visit to downtown businesses, delighted to hear from young professional business owners opening new stores and restaurants in their hometown or home state.

She followed that walk during a warm, muggy afternoon with a tour of the Atlantic City Linen Supply, a large commercial laundry facility in the Stanley Israelite Norwich Business Park. ACLS Norwich handles laundry for both the Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods Resort casinos, numerous hotels and resorts throughout Connecticut and Rhode Island, and some as far away as Boston.

Facility founder and Chief Administrative Officer Dan Goldberg said the New Jersey-based company chose Norwich after a joint deal with the two tribal casinos, who co-signed a loan and became its “anchor” customers. The facility brings in bundles of laundry — sheets, pillowcases, towels and table linens — from customers in bar-coded bins. The items are sorted by size and type, dumped into large coded canvas bags hanging from overhead conveyors, each bag weighing about 150 pounds.

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THE DAY (June 19, 2019) — Norwich — City leaders, business owners and enthusiastic advocates hosted a Connecticut Main Street downtown preservation conference Wednesday highlighting the varied efforts to revitalize downtown Norwich, from festivals to financial incentives to free consultations with city permitting agencies to help entrepreneurs with business plans.

More than 100 participants attended the morning conference in the historic Wauregan Hotel ballroom prior to walking tours of downtown with four tour leaders pointing out new and mainstay businesses, renovations underway and troubled long-vacant properties.

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NORWICH BULLETIN (June 19, 2019) — At a conference Wednesday in the city’s downtown, Chelsea Groton Bank President and CEO Michael Rauh explained that redevelopment efforts often have been stymied by a Catch-22.

Businesses are reluctant to open here because there aren’t enough customers, and customers are reluctant to shop here because there aren’t enough businesses.

Then the problem is compounded by a supply of old deteriorated buildings that may need expensive renovation work that can’t be profitably paid for.

“We knew the building owners were struggling,” Norwich Community Development Corp. President Robert Mills told about 80 people at the conference held in the ballroom of the Wauregan. “We recognized part of this market’s weakness is lack of feet on the street.”

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NORWICH BULLETIN (May 26, 2019) — A large and happy filled Franklin Street on Sunday afternoon to celebrate at the first Cape Verdean Festival.

Tents selling a wide variety of food and other goods and others staffed by local nonprofit organizations filled the block in front the building where organizer Global City Norwich is headquartered.

A stage was set up in a parking lot at Franklin and Bath streets, and children and their parents flocked to a pair of bounce houses in another parking lot.

“I think it’s great, it’s awesome,” said Cheyenne Campbell of Norwich, who came with her three children as well as other relatives. “It’s definitely a good turnout for the first time, that’s for sure.”

Members of Cape Verdeans United, a Norwich-based charity, had a tent at the festival, where they were selling Cape Verdean food, including bacalhau — salted cod — rice and beans, and pastel de peixe, which is a pastry containing fish.

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NORWICH BULLETIN (May 23, 2019) — Apollo Ziembroski opened his first bicycle shop, in Danielson, for $200. He is moving to downtown Norwich – and says he got a better deal.

Apollo Cycles is expected to open at 56 Broadway in June. Ziembrowski was at the shop on Thursday, and said electrical work, drywall and inventory are the big things on his list before opening. The artificial turf on the first-floor outdoor walls of the building will be removed.

Ziembroski, 26, is going all-in for Norwich. He will live in an apartment just above his store.

He said the Norwich Community Development Corporation reached out to him to come to Norwich.

“I had no intention of moving,” said Ziembroski, who closed his shop on Furnace Street in Danielson last month.

NCDC’s package for him to move included, he said, a grant for outdoor signage, a low-interest loan and partial lease reimbursement for seven years.

Ziembroski says Norwich is a great cycling area. He says Camp Moween in Lebanon has about 15 miles of trails.

“It’s a good place,” he said. “It’s really well thought-out.”

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THE DAY (May 21, 2019) — In a two-day tour of southeastern Connecticut, the state’s newest Department of Economic and Community Development commissioner focused on growing cities, capitalizing on the state’s natural assets and leveraging Opportunity Zone status.

David Lehman, a former Goldman Sachs executive the state Senate confirmed as commissioner in March, visited New London and Norwich on Monday, and Norwich and Groton on Tuesday.

His second day included a meeting with the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments at its Norwich office, meetings at Electric Boat and the University of Connecticut’s Avery Point campus, and a tour of the Naval Submarine Base.

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NORWICH BULLETIN (May 18, 2019) — Revelers outfitted in red and blue packed several downtown sidewalks and streets Saturday as the city’s first official Haitian Flag Day event roared to life.

Along Bath and Franklin streets, that flag, with its parallel red-and-blue bars, was waved in hands, draped over shoulders and tied into bandanas by residents who danced, hugged and laughed to a soundtrack pumped out from nearby speakers.

Under a tent overhang, Mirlande Daniel, owner of Norwich-based Mommy’s Delicious Food restaurant, set up serving trays filled with black rice, fried plantains and jerk chicken. Daniel, a Haitian emigrate, said she hoped the street festival would give attendees a better sense of her native country.

“Not a lot of people know about Haiti or even where it is,” she said. “We have a beautiful history.”

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THE DAY (May 15, 2019) — A Cromwell hotel developer purchased the former Elks Club building, more recently the Majestic Rose restaurant, at 352 Main St. on Wednesday and plans to complete renovations aborted several years ago to create a boutique hotel.

RCN Capital LLC, which took over ownership in 2016 of the vacant 1843 former mansion home of mill mogul John F. Slater, sold the building Wednesday to Ganesha Hospitality LLC for $400,000, according to land transaction records filed in the Norwich city clerk’s office.

Developers Amit Maran and his uncle, Harry Patel, have been looking at the building for several months after they saw it listed on a website featuring business properties for sale, Maran said.

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THE DAY (May 2, 2019) — A welcoming gesture to help a new downtown business owner open a new Chinese market and tea café sent ripples across the globe, and on Wednesday, 14 top professional artists in China stopped by to donate artworks to city leaders in a cultural exchange and act of appreciation.

The artists are in the Northeast touring and hosting art seminars at Yale and Harvard universities, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an exhibit in Manhattan.

The Norwich stop was added when Sharon Chu, executive director of the North American Chinese Culture Foundation, based in Mansfield, learned how Norwich officials and volunteers with Global City Norwich assisted business owner Mei He, also of Mansfield, in her plan to open A&S Marketplace, a Chinese market in the Thayer Building at 16 Franklin St. The market will open in mid-May.

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