Feb 20, 2012
03:45 AM
What's happening to that building on Church Street?
Aderelict building on New Milford’s Church Street will be transformed into a design showroom, architect offices, and a museum and library dedicated to product design. In January, Peter Kahane, who owns Ameico—a wholesaler of contemporary design products—purchased the dilapidated building from the town for $120,000, primarily to expand his own business. Inspired by the design store at MoMA and by the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, his plans also include creating something akin to a mini-MoMA once the renovation is completed next fall.
Ameico sells more than 1,000 different high-end design products from lighting fixtures and furnishings to watches to more than 400 retail outlets, including MoMA, Barneys, and Ralph Lauren.
Their new building, a 3,000-square-foot brick-and-limestone Georgian revival dating back to 1917, once housed telephone company offices, a community center, and town offices. But for more than 15 years, the two-story structure stood vacant. In the 1990s, an attempt by a local artist to raise the $1.5 million necessary to restore it fell short. “We have a very strong desire to fulfill a mission to educate the public about design,” says Ameico general manager Jeanette Purdy. Turning a “white elephant”
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