STAMFORD — Pacific Street is the “vertebrae” of the South
End, developer Andres Hogg said. While Atlantic Street and Canal Street extend
down the west and east sides, respectively, of the 350-acre peninsula, Pacific
runs right through the neighborhood's core.
With a collection of seven properties already owned by he
and his wife Carolina Feinstein — and two more under negotiation — Hogg
said recently he is looking to build a “mini downtown” designed as
a central strip.
“Our vision is that in the next five years, you’re gonna see
all of this (as) retail,” Hogg said.
Hogg owns properties on five blocks along the road, starting
at 533 Pacific St., where he said he is looking for a new tenant. Stamford
Modern, a furniture store, will occupy the space until August. He said the
property would be a great spot for a deli or coffee shop.
Next door is a former auto shop at 553 Pacific St. Half of
the parcel will be used by nearby Third Place by Half Full Brewery, while Hogg said the other half
is up for lease.
Further south, the headquarters of Carolina Feinstein’s
luxury linens company, Caro Home, sits at 583 Pacific St. Plans are for the
building to undergo renovations to have an outlet store in the back, along with
nine apartments on top.
But maybe the most ambitious undertaking sits at the corner
of Pacific and Henry streets, where Hogg purchased the old firehouse at 670
Pacific St. — along with an abutting single-family home and a parking lot —
from South End developer Building and Land Technology about two years ago.
Hogg is renovating the old firehouse into a large retail
building. As of May, he envisioned a corporate office space, a food hall or a
wine club moving into the property.
Hogg and Feinstein also purchased transferable development rights from Tabernacle of
Grace Church, a process which Hogg said will preserve the church building and
allow them to add an additional floor next door to the firehouse redevelopment.
In order to repair the old firehouse, Hogg said crews
had to “start all over again from the foundations.” But the renovation project
is coming along, as workers replace the building’s columns and repair rusted
steel beams.
“We said we were going to (repair) it, we’re doing it, and
we’re bringing the firehouse that everybody knows,” Hogg said. “You go to
Norwalk, Greenwich, Stamford, you mention you own the firehouse and everybody’s
like, ‘Whoa.’”
When it’s completed, Hogg said he hopes to have a "mini
downtown" reminiscent of smaller towns around America and Europe:
“pedestrian friendly, historic, with a historic look where you can go from one
building to the other without stepping out onto the street,” he said.
“We don’t have the scale but we have the character in most
of the buildings that we own. And that’s what we’re trying to follow,” Hogg
said.
Accumulating the properties has been a delicate process,
Hogg said. He said he's maintained an open line of communication with neighboring
South End property owners and historic preservationists, some of whom have felt
burned by the neighborhood’s large-scale redevelopment over the
past 15 years.
“We bring something different. The South End community has
been, for the last 15 years, so impacted by what BLT has been doing that every
meeting that I had when I started, I had to explain to them that I was not
BLT,” Hogg said. “The meeting started like that. I’m not from Manhattan, I
(live) seven minutes away and I’m not BLT. And everybody relaxed.”
Hogg and Feinstein moved to New York City from Argentina
several decades ago before settling in Old Greenwich. About seven years ago,
they decided to bring both of their businesses to Stamford.
In the South End, they saw an area with flexibility and a
slower pace than New York City, though Hogg is still active in developing properties
there, too.
“It takes time, obviously,” Hogg said from the cusp of the
properties near Pacific Street’s intersection with Dock Street. “But we came
here five years ago, where we’re standing, and probably you couldn’t even see a
car going by. And now it’s completely different.”
New South Norwalk Elementary School goes before Planning and Zoning Commission
NORWALK—The city’s Planning and Zoning Department will
discuss the South Norwalk Elementary School construction project at its 6 p.m.
meeting Wednesday.
The elementary school will be South Norwalk’s first
in over 40 years and will cost the city $76 million.
The school will be “anchored
in social justice and financial literacy” in a region of Norwalk with a
history of racially segregated education, officials have said.
The proposed school, set to open in fall 2025, is close to
double the size of an average elementary school.
With the expansive 1 Meadow St. Extension space,
contracted Tecton Architects aims
to create an educational environment with “breakout
rooms” for small-group learning and bigger spaces like a media breakout
room, media room, gym, and multipurpose room for larger groups. The city
acquired the former
Hatch & Bailey Co. property last year for the school.
The plans also account for physical and occupational therapy
spaces. The plans for
the three-story building make use of the roof as open-air educational space.
In a January meeting of the education board’s facilities
committee, officials shared that properties near the proposed school were
rezoned as residential, projecting that over half of the potential student body
could walk to school.
Current submitted documents on the city’s website for
the project so far are the special
permit application, CAM
application, project
narrative, site
plans and architectural drawings, stormwater
management report, traffic
impact study, aerial
image, permit
authorization, and the abutters
list.
All of the documents on the website are dated June 8.
Stafford water main project begins the week of July 10
STAFFORD — Connecticut Water Co. will begin installation of
a new water main the week of July 10 on Highland Terrace and Spring
Street.
More than four-tenths of a mile, or 2,200 feet, of water
main will be installed at a cost of approximately $850,000, company officials
said.
The new main replaces existing pipe that is approximately 70
years old, Connecticut Water spokesperson Daniel Meaney said, adding that two
fire hydrants will also be replaced.
Meaney said the main and fire hydrants will provide
additional fire protection for public safety and improved water quantity and
quality to area residents.
Work hours for the project will be from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.,
Monday through Friday. The project is expected to be completed by
October.
Customers in the construction area have been notified of the
project and will receive advance notice of any scheduled water service
interruption.
“Investing in drinking water infrastructure improves water
system reliability and enhances water quality,” said Rose Gavrilovic, vice
president of service delivery for Connecticut Water. “When customers turn on
the tap, they expect high-quality water, without interruption. This investment
in new water main will serve customers for decades to come.”
The project is funded through the Water Infrastructure and
Conservation Adjustment program on customer bills.
Meaney said Connecticut Water’s goal is to replace about 1 percent of its more than 1,850 miles of water main every year through the WICA program. The company plans to invest over $52 million in water treatment, water storage, and pipelines this year.
Connecticut Water is a public water utility that is
regulated by the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority. The company
provides water service to more than 107,000 customers in 60 Connecticut towns,
including East Windsor, Ellington, Enfield, Hebron, Manchester, Somers,
South Windsor, Stafford, Suffield, Tolland, Vernon, and Windsor Locks.
Bridgeport's empty SNET building and nearby parking lot get almost $2M in state loans for cleanup
BRIDGEPORT — A New York City developer aiming to revitalize
a prominent downtown property has received a pair of state loans totaling $1.98
million to help pay for the necessary environmental cleanup.
Kiumarz Geula, through limited liability corporations,
bought the vacant seven-story Southern New England Telephone building at
430 John St. and its adjacent parking lot in December 2021 for $2.5 million,
according to municipal land records.
According to the pair of loan applications submitted to the
state's economic development department, Geula wants to renovate the existing
structure, which dates back to 1958, for 77 artists lofts and two restaurants.
His plans also include building 60 affordably-priced units with
commercial/retail space on the parking lot along Fairfield Avenue.
The loans were awarded late last month. Geula did not return
requests for comment.
William Coleman, Bridgeport's deputy director of economic
development, called the proposals "a real one-two punch for progress
downtown" and noted they will make a good "first impression"
given the location right off of the Route 8/25 connector.
"Together, they combine the historic restoration of an
iconic building with high-quality new construction at a downtown entryway
site," Coleman said. "The developer has put together a thoughtful
program. He's building community, providing affordable housing in a
mixed-income model and he's enlivening the downtown."
Coleman noted "the city's very first rooftop
restaurant" and an art gallery are also part of Geula's plans.
Before any of that becomes a reality, Geula needs to do some
significant environmental remediation, which is where the two state loans of
$990,000 each come in. One loan will fund remediation at the former SNET
offices, and the other will fund clean up at the parking lot.
"The building contains significant asbestos in
insulation, boiler wrappings (and) vinyl floor tile," reads Geula's loan
application, which also lists numerous leaking underground storage tanks and
contaminated soil and groundwater as issues that must be addressed.
The parking lot has its own problems. The Crawford Laundry Company
operated there from the early 20th Century to around 1970.
"The soils and groundwater have tested positive for a
variety of contaminants," reads Geula's report to the state economic
department. "The combined impact of contaminants makes the property not
habitable without abatement and mitigation measures."
The SNET redevelopment was among the nearly two dozen
projects envisioned for similarly contaminated properties around Connecticut
that Gov. Ned Lamont's office on June 22 announced were awarded $23.8
million in financial assistance.
“It makes no sense to have old, polluted, blighted
properties sitting vacant for decades when we could be using this land to grow
new businesses and create new housing,” Lamont said at that time. “This state
program enables us to partner with municipalities and developers to bring these
lifeless properties back from the dead.”
According to Geula's applications, the taxes on the
John Street building should increase from $46,740 to $165,550 once it is
completed, while the tax bill for the parking lot will rise from $34,547 to
$90,000 once the apartments there are built.
The affordable component is also important given concerns
among some elected officials and community leaders that Bridgeport, despite
having far more lower-and-working class income units than its suburban
neighbors, needs
to be more aggressive in bolstering that type of housing as more
market-rate developments are proposed and opened.
Geula's estimated total budget — $17.4 million for 430 John
St. and $28.9 million for the parking lot — also counts on receiving $2.7
million worth of historic tax credits from the state.
According to his paperwork, he has asked the state historic
preservation office to designate the SNET building as historic and will
keep its exterior shell, lobby and elevators while gutting the rest.
Geula, who has been involved in developments in the Bronx
section of New York City, obviously sees potential in Bridgeport, or at least
the city's aged buildings. Besides the SNET property, he has also
purchased the former Connecticut Post building at 410 State St., erected in
1928, and the Moore Special Tool Company structure at 800 Union Ave., built in
1940.