After successes and skirmishes in multiple CT towns, Vessel Technologies looks to new town for apartments

With nearly 250 new apartments across Connecticut either under construction or approved, Vessel Technologies is looking to Avon as the site for a 64-unit complex near Route 44.

The proposal for “attainably priced” apartments — 61 one-bedroom units and three two-bedrooms — in one of the Farmington Valley’s wealthiest suburbs is still in the earliest stages, so details are scarce.

But the project would follow the formula the New Jersey-based developer has employed in the nearly three years after emerging in the Connecticut market. Vessel is already in Rocky Hill, Simsbury, New London and Cheshire, and is seeking to build in Granby, Manchester, Glastonbury and at least four or five other towns, too.

The company is on track to lease 250 units over the next year, with at least 200 more on the books and extensive plans beyond that.

In its short time in Connecticut, Vessel has become one of the state’s most controversial developers. Proponents see the company as future-thinking and innovative, with a sustainable and environmentally sensible answer to Connecticut’s housing shortage. Critics balk that it brings lower-priced apartments and cookie-cutter modernistic buildings into quaint, historic villages.

Not surprisingly, Vessel has gotten a range of welcomes from Connecticut communities: Cheshire and New London embraced it rapidly, Simsbury and Rocky Hill agreed to compromise deal only after lawsuits, and Glastonbury remains in court trying to defend its decision to keep the company out.

But there’s no sign of Vessel pulling back.

“We feel very invested in the state,” said Josh Levy, Vessel’s executive vice president, as he visited the Cheshire construction site this week.

“There’s been renewed interest in Connecticut from young people, there’s renewed interest from business in (creating) jobs, the governor has made a very clear mandate that he knows the state needs housing and wants to make it easier to produce,” Levy said.

In many ways, Vessel’s formula appears to be a solid match for the housing needs of The Land of Steady Habits.

Subdivisions with single-family houses were the chief source of fresh housing in the second half of the 20th century, but land is now scarce and construction prices high — so the few new homes being built are mostly aimed at the upscale and luxury markets.

Apartment construction has flourished in the past three years, but not nearly fast enough to keep pace with demand. And new projects mostly fall into two camps: Higher-end, amenity-rich market rate units, or subsidized housing for low- and low-moderate-income people.

Vessel says with smaller but ultra-modern apartments, it can offer attractive housing to people who fall between those extremes: Medical assistants, bank clerks, car mechanics, entry-level teachers, highway department workers and others.

The company produces nearly identical modular buildings that have an unmistakably modernistic look, and advertises a heavy infusion of smart-home technology and space efficiency. Its one- and two-bedroom units are notably smaller than most new construction, but are priced below market rates and designed to minimize or eliminate utility bills.

Solar panels, heat pumps, LED lighting and low-flow water fixtures are part of its projects, and there’s focus on some smaller details. Landscaping uses exclusively native plants, for instance, so there’s less need for irrigation and pest control treatments, Levy said.

A massive cost saving is in design and construction. Where stick-built apartment buildings take 18 to 24 months, Levy said, Vessel’s contractors can assemble the prefabricated panels in six to eight months. The savings from putting together essentially the same building components in the same way at site after site will chop expenses enormously, he predicted.

“There’s this notion that every building should be a snowflake. I’m a lover of architecture and design, but utility also has to have a place. We’re creating something that’s viable for other needs in a community,” he said.

“When someone goes in and designs a new building in each community with new architects, a new civil engineer, a new general contractor, a new site contractor — all of the knowledge from one project to another is gone,” Levy said.

“Every time we do something, we’re looking at business project improvement: How can we make it faster, better, more cost-effective in the same way that iPhones got better over time, our cars and flat-screen televisions got better over time,” he said. “We want to apply that same idea to housing. That’s been missing forever from the industry.”

Vessel’s approach runs counter to the thinking behind recent market-rate apartments complexes across the state, where dog parks, barbecue pits, pools, gyms and large community rooms are part of the package. Vessel is tight with space and doesn’t offer that, arguing that such amenities serve only a small percentage of tenants — but add to the monthly rent of all of them.

Instead, it focuses on in-unit amenities: large windows for natural light, 9-foot ceilings, dishwashers along with washers and dryers, Brilliant smart-home technology, stainless-steel appliances and continuous air filtration.

At the five-story, 30-unit New London building, the 525-square-foot one-bedroom units are advertised at $1,625 a month.

In New London, all 30 apartments will be leased at “attainable” prices, essentially a discount to market rates.

In Rocky Hill, Cheshire and several other wealthier communities, however, Vessel is setting aside 30% of its apartments as affordable housing, with rents limited to figures that could be paid by people earning only 80 or even 60% of the area’s median income.

With those projects, Vessel is backed by the state’s 8-30g affordable housing statute, which sharply limits the grounds that communities can cite when rejecting affordable housing.

Simsbury’s zoning commission, for instance, last spring concluded Vessel’s proposal for a four-story, 64-unit building on a small lot at 446 Hopmeadow St. would be a health and safety risk because of limited parking and traffic impact.

Vessel put out a statement decrying “the sad but enduring power of the NIMBYism movement in Connecticut’s bedroom communities,” and then sued under the 8-30g law. Last month, the town signed off on an out-of-court compromise that allows Vessel to build a three-story, 48-unit project.

In Avon, the company this winter gave a preliminary presentation to the water pollution control board, saying it wants to build 64 apartments at 25 and 41 Avonwood Road. The two vacant lots are roughly across from the Reggio Magnet School and just off Route 10, about a block south of Route 44.

Vessel hasn’t filed formal zoning applications in Avon, Manchester or Granby yet, but Levy said those projects will be advancing. Of the approved projects, vertical construction on the five-story, 70-unit building on Cheshire’s Realty Drive should commence this month and be completed in the fall, he said.

Two buildings with a total of 96 units will be built on a vacant 6-acre parcel on Henkel Way in Rocky Hill, with site work starting in May and tenants moving in early in 2025, according to Vessel.

Vessel had initially sued Rocky Hill after it was rejected for a 30-unit building at a high-profile location on Route 99. It dropped the suit after the town agreed to the much larger version on Henkel Way, a more secluded property between woodlands and an office park.

Vessel’s application to build 48 units at 51 Kreiger Lane in Glastonbury is the subject of an 8-30g lawsuit in which Vessel contends the town illegally rejected its plan.

In numerous towns, hearings on Vessel proposals have been met with residents’ emphatic and sometimes heated complaints about encroachment on their neighborhoods, increased traffic, potential wetlands damage and more. Vessel so far has amended most of its original proposals to accommodate at least some of those concerns, but Levy said he doesn’t accept overall unwillingness to host attainable or affordable housing.

Most objections to Vessel’s New London project were from preservationists unhappy about a multi-story modern building arising among Bank Street’s historic buildings. But Mayor Michael Passero had nothing but praise for the company, which filled in a long-blighted gap between buildings.

“We had this tiny parcel downtown where the building burnt down in the 1980s and the parcel sat vacant. It just looked bad for 40 years, we called it the missing tooth on Bank Street,” Passero said.

“Then along comes Vessel, and they built on it. It was everything they billed it as,” Passero said.

New London usually requires the ground floor of buildings in the historic district to be commercial, but granted Vessel an exception so it could build only apartments.

“Some people thought it was sacrilege to put in a historic district, we got criticism that they don’t like the looks. Other people like it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I think it’s very attractive,” Passero said.

At a recent conference of mayors, Passero met Mayor Reed Gusciora of Trenton, N.J., whose city has the first leased-out Vessel building.

“He loves Vessel, he said he’s looking for another opportunity there for them,” Passero said.

In New London, the new project adds to the stock of quality apartments at a time when high-paying jobs at General Dynamics are abundant, according to Passero.

“My administration supported them from the get-go. They’re building in a different way, putting technology in things when it’s appropriate,” Passero said.