The 10 acres is labeled MFDD — the multifamily zoning designation — on this map. Sunset Lane is at bottom.
Condominiums, apartment buildings, single-family homes, and a co-housing community were the development concepts the selectmen received Friday from bidders on 10 acres of former Schlumberger land off Sunset Lane.
The bid prices offered ranged from $1.75 million to $4 million.
“We will look at each one of the bids and have discussions as to what the prices are, who we would like to possibly negotiate with, what we want to negotiate, etc.,” First Selectman Rudy Marconi said.
“And some of the points we will be covering are selling price, design, long-term revenue for the town, aesthetics in the neighborhood.
“We have to be considerate of the neighborhood. How does it look compared to what’s across the street?”
The selectmen had an executive-session discussion of the bids scheduled for Wednesday night, and further closed-door meetings on the proposals seem likely.
The Board of Selectmen has chosen not to make the bid documents with their detailed development plans public.
Mr. Marconi gave a quick description on Friday of the different kinds of development proposals that came in — two proposals for single-family homes, one for condominiums, one with apartment buildings and condominiums, and an affordable senior citizen community.
The purchasing department, in keeping with its standard practice, later posted bidders’ names and the dollar prices they offered on the town website.
Mr. Marconi eventually matched the brief descriptions with the various bidders and their prices.
- Toll Brothers, a nationwide firm with offices in Newtown, bid $4 million, with plans for a complex of 32 to 36 condominiums. Toll Brothers built the Regency at Ridgefield age-restricted condominiums on Route 7 just north of Route 35, and are building the huge Rivington complex in the Ridgebury section of Danbury.
- Sun Homes of Pawling, N.Y., bid $3.2 million, proposing 78 units — 44 rental apartments, eight of them deed-restricted as “affordable,” in two buildings of 22 units each, and 34 condominium units laid out around the 10-acre site.
- Ridgefield Investment LLC, represented by the local law firm Donnelly, McNamara & Gustafson, bid $2.7 million, proposing 18 single-family homes.
- Sturges Brothers of Ridgefield bid $2,584,000 and proposed 17 single-family homes.
- New Ridgefield NP, a Ridgefield-based nonprofit that is being formed, bid $1.75 million with plans for “co-housing” for “50 or more” senior citizens.
New Ridgefield NP, which proposed to develop the site in partnership with the Stamford-based affordable housing developer New Neighborhoods Inc., has asked the selectmen to hold off selling the property and give it 60 days to get organized and submit a complete proposal for the town to consider.
In late 2011 the selectmen convinced voters to approve spending $7 million on the former Schlumberger property — $6 million to buy it and another $1 million for “related costs” that ranged from surveying to demolition to oversight of Schlumberger’s environmental cleanup.
Part of the plan was to recover some of the taxpayers’ money by selling off the land for development — with deed restrictions to limit potential density.
The first such proposed deal — an offer of $1.25 million for five acres off Old Quarry Road, with plans including a hotel — will go to town meeting today (Monday).
All along, the selectmen viewed the 10 acres off Sunset Lane as potentially the most lucrative, and this summer they had it rezoned for multifamily use — six units an acre, eight if some are “affordable.”
They put out a request for proposals seeking both a bid price and an accompanying concept plan for development, much as they’d done with the five-acre piece that Monday night’s town meeting will consider selling to Mr. Zemo.
The selectmen aren’t bound to accept one of the proposals now before them. They may well do some negotiating, and they could put the parcel out to bid a second time.
But board members have expressed a sense that they would do well to get back some of the $7 million the town spent on the property two years ago.
“We can reject all bids, and reserve the right to sit and negotiate with a party,” Mr. Marconi said.
“If I’ve read the board correctly, it’s not a situation where time is of the essence. We’re not going to rush into it,” he said. “But we want to keep the ball moving.”