Bridgeport to hold off on demolishing Cherry Street Lofts buildings
BRIDGEPORT — Prominent developer Gary Flocco has a few
months' reprieve to get his Cherry Street Lofts project back on track before
the city moves to demolish the handful of recently-condemned buildings he needs
for more housing.
"Let's see what he can do," City Council President
Aidee Nieves said Tuesday.
She and her colleagues on the legislative body had not
been eager to commit to spending $10 million of taxpayer dollars to raze
the private West End property.
But that was the scenario the economic development office
laid out. In
late April, Director Thomas Gill and Deputy Director William Coleman informed
council budget committee members that four blighted buildings making
up the next phase of Flocco's Cherry Street Lofts endeavor — 62, 72 and 80
Cherry St. and 1325 Railroad Ave — had been deemed hazardous and ordered
demolished.
Unsure of Flocco's ability to do the work, Gill and Coleman
wanted the city to do the estimated $10 million job with no guarantee those
funds would be reimbursed.
Flocco has already built 158 housing units in that
neighborhood, which opened in 2018, plus a charter school. But Cherry Street's
third phase has been stalled for the past few years following
a ceremonial groundbreaking in July 2021. In an interview last month, Flocco blamed pending
lawsuits filed by a former architect on the project for affecting his
financing.
Nieves, Burns and the other budget committee chairman,
Councilman Ernie Newton, all said this week that, for now, neither that
committee nor the full legislative body will authorize spending any dollars to
tear down Flocco's four buildings, despite their condition.
"The gentleman (Flocco) asked to give him time to see
if he can put the deals and stuff together," Newton said.
Flocco has stated in the past that he believed he would soon
have access to the capital to commence work, despite his ongoing legal
issues.
On Tuesday, Flocco said he has since made good
progress.
"My banker is coming in two weeks and will meet with
the city to give them a comfort level," he said. "I'm feeling very
optimistic."
Nieves and Burns said, following economic development's
request for the $10 million, they individually spoke with Flocco to better
understand his situation.
"From the council perspective, we're not excited about
issuing (borrowing) $10 million of bonds to demolish buildings that may yet be
restored, rebuilt," Burns said. "My feeling is that the developer
will still be able to pull things together and end up with a result I think we
all want."
Burns acknowledged that the fact that an emergency
condemnation order has been issued for Flocco's properties opens Bridgeport to
legal exposure as long as the structures remain standing and in disrepair
should a member of the public be injured there.
But he and Nieves also noted that, realistically, even
if the council wanted to fund the economic development office's $10 million
request, it would take a few months for any tear-down to begin. For example,
last year the
building department ordered the "immediate demolition" of the
city-owned Remington Arms factory on the East Side in early January
and construction crews began knocking it down in mid-April.
There is another factor complicating any efforts by
Bridgeport to demolish Flocco's four structures. In
December, 2020 this pending phase of Cherry Street Lofts was awarded $2.2
million from the state to help cleanup any environmental contamination
there.
Jim Watson, spokesman for the state's Department of Economic
and Community Development, confirmed that Flocco has been unable to
execute the final paperwork to access those funds because of the pending
lawsuits against him.
Watson added, as a result of the state committing funds to
Cherry Street Lofts, "any decisions to demolish or condemn the buildings
will have to be signed off by the State Historic Preservation Office."
Were that agency not consulted, Watson said, the state aid
could be jeopardized.
Flocco said Tuesday he hopes to meet with state
economic development staff in June to be able to obtain that $2.2 million.
Developers of the former West Hartford UConn campus refile plans to build hundreds more homes
WEST HARTFORD — One month
after the Town Council approved the
construction of 322 housing units at one half of the former University of
Connecticut campus, developers have restarted the approval process
that would allow them to build over 200 more homes across the street.
Over the winter, the
development group of West Hartford 1 LLC withdrew its plans to redevelop the
western portion of the parcel, allowing West Hartford's various boards,
commissions, and Town Council to just focus on the eastern side of the property
at 1700 Asylum Ave., which was formerly used as the school's parking lot. It
will now be transformed into four residential buildings, adding to an influx of new multifamily
homes in West Hartford.
This week, the developers refiled those
plans with West Hartford's Planning and Zoning
Commission, where it will first seek a
wetlands approval after a future public hearing. It is
possible that developers will face a similar challenge to their plans as they
did months ago, where residents intervened with a
petition to try and stop the project, though they were
unsuccessful.
"No new building or
parking construction is proposed within a wetland except for the filling of a
small, isolated wetland pocket of low-or-no functionality identified at the
corner of building #5," reads the updated filing letter. "Development
of the site as a university campus has significantly impacted the ecological
integrity of its wetlands resources. The overall wetlands functionality is
low."
Whereas the western side
was a straightforward residential development, the plans for the eastern side —
at 1800 Asylum Ave. — are a bit different. While there are plans to build 211
housing units, they will be split between 93 apartments, 28 townhouses, and 90
assisted-living units.
That housing, the
developers said, would then be accompanied by a commercial component, including
retail uses such as a restaurant, a cafe, a spa, and a grocery store, among
other potential uses.
Should the project get its
wetlands approval, the development would then need to be approved by the Town
Council, which would have to vote to rezone the area from single-family to
multifamily, while also approving of the commercial aspect of the proposal.
West Hartford's Town Council
has shown a willingness to approve more housing in all parts of
town, with well over a thousand new multifamily homes expected to be built over
the next few years through a variety of projects. Should the project be
approved as is, there would 533 total homes built between the two parcels.