Manetta Architecture + Design, PLLC

What stands, we reconsider. What's needed, we build new.

An architecture practice focused on adaptive reuse — turning historic mill and office buildings into multifamily housing — alongside new multifamily and single-family residential design.

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Every building already on a site is a set of decisions someone else made. Our job is to decide which of those decisions still hold — and design around the ones that don't.

Mill floors, load-bearing masonry, generous window bays, structural bones built for a different century — these aren't constraints to hide. They're the starting geometry for the housing that goes in next.

Where there's no existing structure to answer to, we start from the site itself: orientation, context, and how a household actually wants to live. Adaptive reuse and new construction pull from the same discipline; they just start from different first questions.

Adaptive Reuse

Historic mill & office buildings, reconsidered as housing

We specialize in converting former industrial mills and outdated office buildings into multifamily residential communities — working with existing structure, envelope, and code constraints rather than against them.

  • Historic mill-to-multifamily conversion
  • Obsolete office-to-residential repositioning
  • Historic tax credit & preservation coordination
  • Structural & envelope feasibility studies
New Construction

New multifamily & single-family residential

When the site calls for it, we design ground-up — new multifamily buildings and single-family homes, built with the same attention to context, materiality, and long-term performance as our reuse work.

  • Ground-up multifamily communities
  • Single-family & custom residential
  • Site planning & entitlement design
  • Infill & missing-middle housing
How a project moves

Process

Four phases, whether the project starts with an existing building or an empty lot.
01

Assessment & Feasibility

Existing conditions, zoning, and unit-yield studies for reuse sites; site and market fit studies for new construction.

02

Design & Entitlements

Schematic and design development alongside the approvals — planning board, historic commission, or both — a project needs to move forward.

03

Construction Documents

Permit-ready drawings and specifications, coordinated with structural, MEP, and civil consultants.

04

Construction Administration

On-site observation, RFI and submittal review, and close coordination with the contractor through occupancy.

A sample of the work

Selected Work

Project types we specialize in.

A mix of adaptive reuse conversions and ground-up residential work across Connecticut and New York — elevations shown here are conceptual, with full photography to follow.

01
Adaptive Reuse

Apel Opera House

Former opera house & mill
35 Oakland Street, Manchester, CT
Built 188826 UnitsHistoric Tax Credits
02
New Construction

Bayside Subdivision

New single-family subdivision
Bayside, NY
3 New Homes1 Original Lot
03
Adaptive Reuse

Bank Street Residences

Former office building
30 Bank Street, New Britain, CT
Built 196832 Units
04
New Construction

Quogue Residence

Custom single-family
Quogue, NY
Coastal Flood ZoneSingle-Family
05
Adaptive Reuse

Park Street Residences

Former office building
4 Park Street, Vernon, CT
Office Conversion24 Units
06
New Construction

Bushwick Multifamily

Ground-up multifamily
Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY
4 Stories6 Units
The studio

Thomas Manetta, RA

Manetta Architecture + Design, PLLC is a residential-focused architecture practice built around two related disciplines: giving new life to buildings that have outlived their original use, and designing new housing that's built to do the same. Whether the project starts with a set of mill columns and a masonry shell or an empty lot, the approach is the same — understand what the building needs to do, and let that drive every decision after it.

PrincipalThomas Manetta, RA
FirmManetta Architecture + Design, PLLC
FocusMultifamily & residential
RegistrationNY + CT
Based inGreat Neck, NY

Have a building — or a lot — worth a second look? Let's talk.