A Waterbury building at 1700 Watertown Ave. attracted national attention in 2018 as celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay worked to find and fix the faults in the declining Vasi’s Taverna.
Despite changes that followed the show, the Mediterranean-style restaurant ended its 18-year run in late 2019. The River Hill Restaurant opened in the summer of 2020 and then closed less than two years later.
Now, the 62-year-old restaurant building will get new life as a center offering job skills and supportive programs to intellectually disabled individuals under Easterseals of Greater Waterbury Inc. The nonprofit paid $940,000 for the 6,330-square-foot building on 1.8 acres in a sale recorded by the city on July 11.
The seller, Straits Crossing LLC, is headed by Robert LaFlamme, a Middlebury-based investor and developer active in the Greater Waterbury area. LaFlamme’s LLC paid $605,000 for the property in September 2022, buying it from another LLC headed by Vasilios Kaloidis, who had owned and managed Vasi’s.
Dom Giglio, owner of Waterbury-based Giglio Commercial Real Estate, represented Easterseals.
Waterbury Economic Development Director Joseph McGrath said the city is glad the property will go to a good use in the hands of a solid organization that has long provided valuable services to area residents.
Len Cipollone, president and CEO of Easterseals of Greater Waterbury, said there will be “significant investment” in renovations to prepare the property for employment training and as a base of operations for home-aid programs. The building will serve as home base for about 48 staff and 140 program participants, Cipollone said.
The programs are moving from space in an industrial area of nearby Watertown, where a lease will shortly expire, Cipollone said. The new offices will offer much more exposure to the public, while also bringing this program center in proximity to Easterseals’ Waterbury headquarters, he said.
“We are really excited about the new location, happy to be more integrated into the community,” Cipollone said.
