ansonia, conn.: a small city with a sense of history
/
By Lisa Prevost | Published on September 21, 2022
Lourdes Romero and Marco Hernandez found their way to Ansonia, Conn., in 2018, when their family outgrew the two-bedroom basement apartment they’d been renting in Astoria, Queens.
“We had two kids, and then we had twins — that was a game changer,” Ms. Romero, 35, said.
They couldn’t afford a bigger apartment in Queens, so after first trying out Bridgeport, Conn., they moved farther up the Route 8 corridor to Ansonia. But after Queens, this city in New Haven County was an adjustment.
“I came with my New York mentality,” Ms. Romero said. “I really underestimated how important it was to have a car.”
But now, the family has decided that Ansonia is home. They pay $1,200 a month for an apartment that is short on space, but they’re saving in hopes of buying a house. Mr. Hernandez, 38, works in New York as an HVAC installer. Ms. Romero looks after the children, now five of them, ages 2 to 14. She has a car, and takes advantage of the curbside pickup at the Target in town, rather than trying to corral five children through the aisles.
The city is small enough that “you get to know the schoolteachers,” she said. “A lot of the teachers are local, and I bump into them all the time.”
Recently, former manufacturing communities like Ansonia and the surrounding areas in the lower Naugatuck River Valley have been gaining popularity with New Yorkers, thanks to their relative affordability and ongoing efforts at revitalization.
Ansonia has attracted popular restaurants along its historic Main Street, and developer Joseph M. Gega is turning empty commercial buildings downtown into almost 400 apartments. The first phase of the project, with 91 units, is completed and 90 percent leased, Mr. Gega said.
“Our target market is work-force housing,” Mr. Gega said. The rents of $1,500 to $2,200 a month “are still about 30 percent below surrounding towns.”
Stacy Olson, an agent with William Raveis, has a YouTube channel where she posts videos about the area. Consequently, she said, “I get a lot of inquiries from people from Queens, the Bronx, Long Island. More people are moving in because the taxes are lower, it’s still commutable to New York City, and they have access to Metro-North.”
Alison Healy, an agent with Coldwell Banker, said she is currently selling a three-bedroom Cape Cod-style home in Ansonia to a buyer from New York. (The sale hasn’t closed yet.) Her client listed the home for $299,900, “and did quite well on it,” she said. “The man who bought it sees a lot of potential.”
Juan Santana, 27, is hoping to buy in Ansonia. Taking a break recently from playtime with his 4-year-old daughter at the Ansonia Nature and Recreation Center, Mr. Santana said his parents moved to Ansonia when he was in the fifth grade. While he’d like to see more efforts at building community, his experience in the public schools was a positive one.
“The teachers are way more inclined to making sure a child understands,” he said, “rather than just passing them along.”
What You’ll Find
With roughly 19,000 residents packed into six square miles, Ansonia is a densely populated city northwest of New Haven that grew up around sprawling copper and brass manufacturing facilities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Naugatuck River runs parallel to downtown, where stately brick buildings dating to the city’s heyday line Main Street.
Empty factory buildings still abound, but the administration of the current mayor, David S. Cassetti, is working to remedy that. The city is taking possession of the long-dormant Ansonia Copper and Brass site, roughly 50 acres, in hopes of securing funding to clean it up so it can be leased to new manufacturers, said John P. Marini, the city’s corporation counsel.
“The final frontier for the city is to restore that for economic use,” he said. “It’s a huge challenge, but the biggest opportunity for the whole area.”
Multifamily homes on small lots line the hilly streets around downtown. Single-family homes — mainly older ranches, raised ranches and Cape Cods with larger yards — are found in the city’s Hilltop section. About 60 percent of Ansonia homes are owner-occupied, according to information from the nonprofit organization DataHaven.
Zuppardi’s, a spinoff of the well-known Zuppardi’s Apizza in West Haven, Conn., opened earlier this year just outside of downtown, on Beaver Street. Jim Ormrod, who grew up in the Zuppardi business, opened it as a commissary kitchen for his pizza truck, but also sells takeout, modeled after Brooklyn slice shops.
“The building had been empty for a long time, and the locals were glad to see it get done over,” Mr. Ormrod said. “I put a lot of time, effort and money into this place. I think it’s contagious — I’ve already noticed that a couple of buildings on the street have been repainted since.”
A new sports training facility and soccer stadium is planned for vacant land along the river. Olé Football Club, a semiprofessional soccer team, will be a primary tenant when the complex is completed, probably within a year.
“We will use it to showcase the club and get more people coming out for games,” said Rodrigo Nunes, the owner of the team and Olé Soccer, a youth sports program. “We actually have a dorm in Ansonia now where some of our players sleep.”
What You’ll Pay
As in many places these days, Ansonia’s housing market is tight, with far fewer listings than usual. As of Sept. 14, there were just 25 active listings, including single-family and multifamily homes and condominiums, said Jill Taylor, a real estate agent and the managing director at Re/Max Right Choice, in Milford, Conn. Another 46 properties were under contract, she said.
The active listings ranged in price from $160,000 for a 1,200-square-foot house currently used as a rental to $700,000 for a six-family home.
“I believe the market is beginning to level out,” Ms. Taylor said. “Some homes are still selling with multiple offers, which is in line with the last few years of a sellers’ market. However, we are beginning to plateau. Some listings are beginning to struggle.”
So far this year, the median sale price for a single-family home is $299,900, compared with $252,500 during the same period last year, she said. For that price, you can typically buy a Cape Cod or modest colonial on a small lot.
The median sale price for a multifamily home is $340,000, compared with $299,500 last year, she said. The median rent is $1,550, compared with $1,400 last year.
Ansonia’s mil rate of $37.80 (the figure used to calculate property taxes) is high compared with most Fairfield County suburbs, but on par with neighboring areas in New Haven County.
The Vibe
The community rallies around the Chargers, the high school football team, at Friday night games at the Nolan Athletic Complex. The team has won 20 state titles.
The nature center draws visitors from around the area to its 156 acres of woods and fields. The shaded playground area, with picnic tables, is popular with families.
The Naugatuck River Greenway, a paved walkway along the river, attracts pedestrians to the section that passes through Ansonia. And during the holiday season, Santa Claus rides around on a city fire truck. When children hear sirens, they know to run outside so Santa can throw them popcorn balls.
The Schools
The Ansonia Public Schools district serves about 2,300 students in two elementary schools, a middle school and a high school. The district is diverse — about 45 percent of students identify as Hispanic or Latino, 27 percent as white and 20 percent as Black, according to State Department of Education data.
The Mead Elementary School and Prendergast Elementary School offer prekindergarten programs; students in sixth through eighth grades attend Ansonia Middle School. In August, the district’s board of education decided to put armed and unarmed guards in all of those schools as a precaution against attacks.
About 550 students attend Ansonia High School. The most recent SAT scores were 451 in reading and writing, and 418 in math; the state averages were 501 and 486. The school has manufacturing pathway and apprenticeship programs for students interested in local manufacturing opportunities.
The Commute
The Metro-North Railroad trip from Ansonia to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan takes just under two and a half hours, with a transfer from the Waterbury Branch line to the New Haven line in Bridgeport, Conn. A one-way peak ticket is $20.75; a monthly pass is $406.75.
The 70-mile drive into Midtown Manhattan takes two to three hours, depending on traffic.
The History
An opera house dating to 1870 stands on Main Street, but has been silent since the 1970s. Part of an upper Main Street historic district on the National Register of Historic Places, the Italianate Ansonia Opera House is one of about a dozen brick commercial buildings erected in the late 19th century to accommodate the growing manufacturing city.
In addition to theatrical performances, “all important events took place at the opera house,” including graduation ceremonies and boxing matches, according to the National Register application. A Facebook page dedicated to the opera house features recent photographs of still-intact rows of seating that surround a small stage in the third-floor auditorium. The city recently formed a committee to study how to revive the performance hall.