The Norwalk City Council has voted to adopt an addendum to its agreement with Primestor Development for a project which would add housing and commercial uses to its Civic Center.

Initially approved in 2022, the project is a specific plan encompassing roughly 13 acres of land at Norwalk Boulevard and Imperial Highway. Norwalk and Primestor originally proposed clearing surface parking and much of the Civic Center's front lawn to make way for buildings containing 350 homes and 110,000 square feet of commercial uses.

A revised plan will put greater emphasis on housing than the original proposal, now calling for 374 homes, including 56 affordable units. The amount of planned commercial space has been slightly scaled back to just over 94,000 square feet, and would include a mix of restaurant and general retail uses.

The revisions result in a lower parking requirement for the Civic Center development, with 1,542 vehicle stalls in lieu now planned in lieu of the more than 1,700 spaces called for by the original project. The bulk of the project's parking would be provided within an existing garage.

A rendering also shows that the project's residential uses would be shifted to a pair of seven-story structures along eastern side of the property, in lieu of the mixed-use buildings fronting Imperial Highway from the original plan. Commercial uses would be located in lower-scale structures fronting Norwalk Boulevard and Imperial Highway, and also oriented along a central pedestrian spine through the center of the Civic Center property. In total, nearly 120,000 square feet of publicly accessible open space would be included in the project - an increase from the 100,000 square feet in the original plan.

A supplemental environmental report indicates that construction of the project is expected to occur over a 24-month period, with work starting as early as 2025.

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