NORWALK — New England Auto Museum may finally have found a home to showcase Connecticut’s automotive history to car buffs and the general public.
The museum is eyeing, among at least one other location, part of the historic office building at 25 Van Zant St. and will make its decision in 2018, said President and CEO Michael Scheidel.
“The space is good. It’s expandable. It’s a fair location,” Scheidel said. “There’s 104 car clubs in Connecticut, so when you stick them all on a map of Connecticut, one third of them are all down here in the Fairfield area. Also, the standard of living is a little higher down here so it’s (the museum) more apt to be supported by corporations and individuals. And there’s just a large number of collectors down here and automotive restoration shops in Connecticut.”
Scheidel said the roughly 8,000-square-foot space on the east side of the building facing Osborne Avenue would house about 30 cars on display and has sufficient interior height to create a mezzanine level with classrooms and a library. There’s expansion room either side, he added.
The museum outlined the proposal in its program booklet for its 2018 Father’s Day Car Show, which was Sunday at Mathews Park.
“The New England Auto Museum has reached a critical turning point as plans are in place to open a facility at 25 Van Zant St. in Norwalk by the 4th Quarter of 2018,” reads a portion of the program. “The structure was built originally in 1923 by Turner Construction, as the largest hat manufacturing facility in the U.S.”
Manufacturing plants built between World War I and World War II were engineered to withstand attack from land and sea. “As a result the building is over-engineered for today’s needs providing virtually unlimited floor loads and a very stable environment,” the program booklet reads.
The five-story, 250,000-square-foot office building — owned by East Norwalk Business Association president and car collector Winthrop Baum — is undergoing a $12 million renovation that is replacing its roof, siding and windows.
Scheidel said the museum is considering a multi-year lease for the space facing Osborne Avenue, but added it has found one other potential location in Norwalk, which he declined to identify.
Co-founded by Scheidel, his wife and brother, the nonprofit New England Auto Museum has been in existence since 2007 but never had a home.
The organization considered several towns before setting its sights on Norwalk, first Loehmann’s Plaza on West Avenue and later Riverview Plaza, once home to a Pathmark Supermarket, along Belden Avenue.
In 2015, the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency approved a $13,000 grant to determine whether such a museum would be viable in the Norwalk area.
Three years later, NEAM now envisions in Norwalk a world-class museum that will feature and rotate automobiles of all eras, present design and technological innovations, and engage and educate students and guests with “interesting, high-quality automobile and historical artifact exhibits.”
For Scheidel, cars and automotive history are a passion he hopes to share with others.
“This has always been one of my dreams and passions, to open up a museum and education facility because I’m into cars — big time,” Scheidel said. “But also, Connecticut was, we call it, one of the birthplaces. The patent to the automobile started here in Connecticut.”
In 1895, George Selden was granted a patent to build automobiles. He was taken to court by fellow automotive pioneer Henry Ford. The court ordered each man to produce two vehicles. One of Selden’s cars remained stored in Hartford, Scheidel said.
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