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Fairfield County Business Journal - June 26, 2006

Changing cityscape Projects heralded as boost to downtown Bridgeport
By DAVID GURLIACCI

With three building-renovation projects in downtown Bridgeport now under construction, city officials and developers say more projects are under way that will bring bustle into the city’s long-dormant downtown.

The Citytrust complex of four adjacent, connected buildings, with 118 apartments and space for six businesses is scheduled to open by the end of the year, according to the developers.

At roughly the same time, the Arcade Mall and 144 Golden Hill Street projects will also open, bringing 60 more apartments and more space for businesses. On June 19, the developers and city officials held a ceremony to celebrate the start of construction. The Citytrust building boasts a multistory, marble lobby and Art Deco design features; the Arcade has a

prominent glass roof.

But one of the developers of those projects, Urban Green Builders of New York City, says its to-do list for the downtown is longer than that. The projects being finished now constitute phases 1 and 2. The next item on the list, phase 3, would bring in more than 200 apartments and 80,000 feet of retail space to an unnamed project on Main Street between Golden Hill and Gold Streets. Another project on Main Street between Golden Hill and Elm streets, phase 4, would have another 200 apartments.

Those future projects haven’t received financing yet, but Nnenna Lynch, partner and project manager at Urban Green Builders said the development company is confident it will be able to borrow the money. Lenders are more open to financing for the next phases in Urban Green’s plans than for the initial phases, she said.

“By closing on the financing for phases one and two, we’ve gotten over the hurdle,” she said. “I think now there’s some positive momentum and a growing belief in the Bridgeport market.”

Beyond these projects, Urban Green is “actively looking at even more opportunities,” Lynch said.

Citytrust Building: Terracotta detail & Window detail.

Nancy Hadley, director of the Bridgeport Office of Planning and Economic Development, said other projects are also being proposed and planned, including another major development expected to be proposed by a developer who bought property by Seaside Park and Main Street.

Bigger than all of these projects combined, provided it receives financing and gets off the ground, is the proposed Steel Point project just to the east of downtown, on the other side of the Pequonnock River. That proposed development is projected to have 2,000 to 3,000 apartments along with offices and stores within about 6 million square feet of indoor space.

Paul Timpanelli, president of the Bridgeport Regional Business Council, said the Citytrust building project, together with the Arcade Mall and 144 Golden Hill Street projects form “probably the most critical project that’s on the drawing boards in downtown Bridgeport.”

Until now, downtown Bridgeport wasn’t ready for more residents, Timpanelli said. Bringing in the Harbor Yards sports complex, new restaurants, Housatonic Community College and fixing up streets and sidewalks in recent years has now prepared it as an attractive neighborhood for middle-class apartment renters, he said.

“Bridgeport’s revitalization is a whole formula of things, and all these things have to happen in connection with each other,” Timpanelli said. “It’s all an integrated, comprehensive formula.”

Hadley said the downtown’s revitalization has been picking up in part because the administration of her boss, Mayor John Fabrizi, who came into office in April 2003, has been “revamping the way we do business here” with open, transparent and predictable economic development procedures.

“I think their confidence is showing,” she said of developers who have started to work with the city.

Urban Green Builders will promote its apartments as very close to the Bridgeport train station, making for easy commutes into downtown Stamford, Greenwich or Manhattan.

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