Work progresses at the RVNA’s new building on Governor Street, which the nurse association expects to occupy sometime next year. The town is looking for new tenants to fill the Venus Building space the RVNA will leave, and officials are hopeful The Chefs’ Warehouse may expand into some of it. —Macklin Reid
With the Ridgefield Visiting Nurse Association due to move out of the Venus Municipal Building next year, the selectmen are trying to improve upon the town’s $230,000 a year profit as landlord of the building.
The Chefs’ Warehouse is interested in expanding into much of the space to be vacated by the nurse association, or RVNA, and The Ridgefield Playhouse has offered to rent the area now occupied for free by the Board of Education — if a new location can be found for the school offices.
“Those are the two big moves,” First Selectman Rudy Marconi said.
The biggest money-maker for the town would the expansion of Chef’s Warehouse.
“They want it. They’re expanding. They’re having great success,” Marconi said of Chefs’ Warehouse. “And they’re a great corporate partner for the town.
“Their lease does allow them the right of first refusal on any vacated areas at that building,” he added.
The town currently receives about $624,000 a year in rent from six tenants in the Venus building, against about $390,000 in costs, producing its $230,000 profit.
Chefs’ Warehouse currently pays $405,000 of the $624,000 in rent that the town collects — close to two-thirds — while occupying about half the space. Chefs’ takes about 22,000 of some 46,000 square feet of space.
RVNA plans
The next biggest tenant is the RVNA. The nursing association is in theory charged about $110,000 for 8,000 square feet of space, but that is reduced to around $68,000 by a $42,500 rent abatement granted annually by the Board of Selectmen in light of the RVNA’s services to the town.
The RVNA is putting up a new building on Governor Street, and plans to move there when it’s done.
“The construction of the new building is on track and progressing nicely,” said Lili Shroppe, RVNA marketing and public relations manager.
“As far as when we’ll be vacating, that will be in early 2016.”
Marconi told a recent selectmen’s meeting he was optimistic about Chefs’ Warehouse renting RVNA space.
“We met with Chefs’ — they’re looking at the first floor and possibly the second floor,” he said.
Later Marconi said Chefs’ interest in renting more space at the Venus building results from corporate growth at the specialty food products distributor, which went public with a stock offering in 2013.
“They went public and have been pretty aggressive with their acquisitions of additional companies,” Marconi said.
Chefs’ growth
Chefs’ has acquired seven different food companies in the last four years: Prami International, Michael’s Finer Meats and Queensgate Foodservice in 2012; Qzina Specialty Foods North America and Allen Brothers in 2013; Euro Gourmet in 2014; and Del Monte Capital Meat Company in 2015.
Chefs’ Warehouse is showing sales growth, according to a May 6 report in Globe Newswire, which distributes corporate news releases.
“Net sales increased 6.3% to $198.9 million for the first quarter of 2015 from $187.2 million for the first quarter of 2014,” Globe Newswire reported of Chefs’ Warehouse.
CEO Chris Pappas and others in management at Chefs’ Warehouse did not return calls from The Press.
The workforce of employees that Chefs’ Warehouse has in the Venus building is already sizable.
“Over 80 at this point, it may be 90,” Maroni said.
If the firm took all of the area being vacated by the RVNA, it would be an expansion equal to about one-third its current rental area.
“They have about 22,000 square feet and the RVNA is vacating all in all about 7,500 — that’s usable space, discounting bathrooms and a percentage of the hallways,” Marconi said.
Chefs’ Warehouse describes itself as “a specialty food distributor that began sourcing products for high-end chefs over 30 years ago” and “distributes more than 31,800 products to more than 22,600 customer locations throughout the United States and Canada.”
Playhouse expansion?
The leadership of The Ridgefield Playhouse is also seeking to rent more space at the Venus building. In April Executive Director Allison Stockel told the selectmen the Playhouse wanted to take over the Board of Education’s offices, and might pay up to $180,000 a year for the space.
“They came to a Board of Selectmen’s meeting and explained that in order for them to remain viable and to achieve the necessary fund-raising that had to go on for the success of the Playhouse, they absolutely need more space,” Marconi said, “and have now for several years requested the possibility of occupying the Board of Education — and to pay full market value, which is about $18 to $20 per square foot for that building.”
He added, “There’s no target date at this point in time.”
The Playhouse would pay the town more if it took on the larger space, but its leadership sees the added area as increasing the non-profit theater’s fund-raising potential.
“We feel we need more space to survive,” Stockel told the selectmen in April.
School board move?
The selectmen are supportive, according to Marconi, but understand that the Playhouse expansion plan requires relocating the school offices
“This seemed to be working out well when the Board of Education was accessing and appeared to be heading toward the closure of an elementary school,” Marconi said. “This would have allowed an area for the Board of Education to move into, as well as solving some other issues for space.
“But now it appears that the closure of a school may not happen.”
Marconi said he possessed no inside knowledge, but had gathered from press reports that the school board isn’t really committed to closing a school, even though it had voted some years ago to go from six to five elementary buildings when the kindergarten to fifth grade population falls below 2,000 students — and is projected to stay there for at least a decade.
The school board’s demographer projects that point will be reached in the next few years, but the selectmen expect the school board will then look at other criteria they’d specified, and find reason to delay a tough decision.
“If you wait long enough, the curve will come back and you won’t need to close one,” Marconi said.
Fall enrollment
School board chairman Austin Drukker said the topic isn’t one the board will be discussing again soon — they’ll take it up after the fall enrollment report is in.
“Between and now and November we’re not going to be talking about it,” Drukker said. “I think the last iteration of it was we’re going to get the numbers in October, in November, and see where we’re at.”
He said the Playhouse and the town seem to be rushing the process.
“I do know that they’ve had people in there looking at it and measuring stuff up. But I think it’s going to be a real quandary for the town and Board of Education if they offer space to somebody, and where are they going to put the Board of Ed?
“We have a number we’re waiting to get to, to close an elementary school,” he said. “In a perfect world, if everything worked the way we want it to, if we dropped below a certain amount — 2,000 — then, sure, we could probably move some things around.”
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