What's next for proposed Bridgeport soccer stadium site after CT nixes state funds?
BRIDGEPORT — The owners of the lower East Side land
where entrepreneur Andre Swanston has
wanted to build a minor league soccer stadium are moving on from that
idea and instead pursuing their own mixed-use, sports-centered redevelopment
project.
“We’re continuing to hone the site plan,” Robert “Bobby”
Christoph, a consultant for 255 Kossuth LLC, which purchased the property in
2022, said Wednesday.
The news comes just days after Gov. Ned Lamont’s
administration dealt a severe blow to Swanston’s two-plus-year-old proposal
by denying
the key state funding the entrepreneur had sought.
The alternative vision for the 255 Kossuth St. address is
not a dramatic swerve from what Swanston and his Connecticut Sports Group
organization had in mind — housing, restaurants, and a hotel, but
now anchored not by a soccer venue but a for-profit community sports facility
with multi-purpose courts and fields for training, tournaments and other
athletic events.
Christoph confirmed the concept is similar though smaller
than Stamford-based
Chelsea Piers.
“There is a large demand for facilities like this … to
practice and play on, whether a college, a university, a high school, a club
program,” he explained, adding the intent is to further engage with the local
community, Bridgeport and state officials as the plan evolves.
If Christoph’s name sounds familiar, he and his father,
Robert Sr., have spent years slowly redeveloping the nearby Steelpointe site
along the harbor just over Interstate 95 from Kossuth Street, which boasts
retail, restaurants and a marina, with apartments well under construction and
a hotel on the way.
Swanston has been publicly pursuing his minor league soccer
venue since
fall of 2023 and was negotiating with 255 Kossuth LLC to acquire its
property, a longtime industrial site along the Pequonnock River that most
recently housed the shuttered Shoreline Star off-track betting facility.
He had been seeking $127 million in state monies for what he
claimed was a $1.1 billion mostly privately financed mixed-use
redevelopment. Lamont had continually
expressed reservations about that size of an investment but never
publicly said “no,” and the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community
Development had been in months-long talks with Swanston.
Then last Friday, Lamont’s office and the DECD announced
that they were taking a pass.
In
his response Sunday, Swanston said “we are evaluating our alternative
stadium development plans” but acknowledged the venue may not be able to remain
in Bridgeport. He
does have a team, CT United, whose players launch their inaugural season
March 1, practicing in Stamford at Chelsea Piers and playing at to-be-announced
locations around Connecticut and out-of-state.
Reached Wednesday about the future of the 255 Kossuth
acreage, Connecticut Sports Group said, “CT United’s majority owners reside in
Connecticut and own businesses in Connecticut. Several of our minority owners
live, grew up, or attended school in Connecticut. Although markets in other
states have already reached out to gauge our interest in moving, we are
committed to keeping the team in Connecticut.”
Christoph said 255 Kossuth LLC understands that the
stadium is just not possible on that particular East Side property without the
state support.
“I do believe he will continue to grow the opportunity in
Connecticut. It just won’t be at this location,” Christoph said of Swanston,
adding, “We waited for two years for this opportunity (the soccer stadium). And
if this was able to happen we wanted it to occur.”
Swanston had a purchase option for 255 Kossuth St. but
that expired
last summer, raising some doubts at the time about the future of his
soccer proposal even before Friday’s bad news from the state.
“Now that that’s been decided, we’re going to move
expeditiously,” Christoph continued.
And likely try to take advantage of some of the ground work
laid by Swanston and his supporters.
That includes tapping a pair of state
grants totaling $16 million awarded in 2024 to clean-up the
contaminated Kossuth Street land. While those monies were to have been used to
prepare the site for stadium construction, Lamont administration officials had
emphasized they were not directly linked to that specific project.
DECD spokesman Jim Watson on Tuesday reaffirmed that
position.
“The grant funds are tied to the cleanup and redevelopment
of specific parcels of land,” Watson said. “Both … grant awards will remain in
place at this time. The grant recipients — the City of Bridgeport
and BEDCO (Bridgeport Economic Development Corporation) — can work
with the site owner and DECD to identify and request a new end use for DECD’s
approval to proceed.”
Christoph mentioned the possibility of the Kossuth sports
facility idea benefiting from legislation passed by the Connecticut
General Assembly last summer allowing Bridgeport officials to establish
a tax incremental financing (TIF) district in that neighborhood.
Similarly originally aimed at but not tied to the stadium,
the TIF can be utilized to help pay for up to $190 million worth of
infrastructure improvements by allowing a portion of any new real estate
taxes generated by the redevelopment to pay off the debt rather than going
directly into Bridgeport’s municipal coffers.
In a brief interview Tuesday, Mayor Joe Ganim expressed
hope Swanston’s CT United might still call Bridgeport home at other
locations. He suggested John F. Kennedy Stadium at Central High School as one
possibility.
“Let’s prove its success,” Ganim said of having a minor
league soccer team in town.
Then on Wednesday, in response to Christoph’s comments on
255 Kossuth LLC’s decision, the mayor’s chief administrative officer,
Thomas Gaudett, said the administration would definitely be interested in
learning more.
“I think we would be excited to hear … ideas for housing, a
hotel and entertainment space on that site,” Gaudett said. “That is
consistent with the general vision we have.”
As for using the tax incremental financing legislation,
Gaudett added, “That would certainly be in play if we had a formal proposal.”
The Kossuth Street neighborhood is in the district of state
Rep. Antonio Felipe’s, D-Bridgeport. He had heard there was a “Plan B” in
the works “but any kind of attention paid to that prematurely was a disservice
to the possibility of having soccer.”
“Anyone would be foolish not to support a mixed-use
development there, especially when it comes to building more housing in the
city,” Felipe said.
He wants 255 Kossuth LLC to include affordable units.
Swanston claimed 40 percent of the 1,000 apartments he intended to have built
would have been for lower-income tenants.
Felipe said while he respect’s Lamont’s position, he
believes it was “short-sighted” for Connecticut government not to embrace
Swanston’s and Connecticut Sports Group’s vision.
“That was a much bigger opportunity to create something
exciting, fresh and a draw to the city,” he said. “Soccer was the big fish and
we just couldn’t reel it in.”
An aging swing bridge in Connecticut could be all yours — if you can move it
The Connecticut Department of Transportation may have a
bridge to sell you.
Or, actually, you could have it for free.
Though it has yet to make a final decision about the fate
of the William F. Cribari Memorial Bridge, which brings Route 136 over
the Saugatuck River in Westport and is listed on the National Register of
Historic Places, the state DOT has put
out a call for letters from parties interested in moving the structure
to a different location and reusing it.
The agency released
a draft report this week on the potential environmental impacts of
rehabilitating or replacing the swing bridge, which has multiple “structural
and functional deficiencies.”
Officials said that if they ultimately decide on
replacement, they will contact the parties that have expressed interest in
taking the bridge and ask them to submit formal proposals for how they would
relocate, reassemble and preserve it.
But who in the world would want to take ownership of a
bridge originally
built in 1884?
“There are a variety of groups that could be interested in
reusing a bridge, including towns, non-profit groups, or community
organizations,” said Josh Morgan, DOT’s director of communications. “There is
no restriction on who could submit a proposal, assuming all requirements are
met, but priority will be given to a potential new owner who would use the
structure in a transportation related capacity.”
“The bridge would be available for free, provided that the
entity that acquires it has the financial resources to restore and reuse the
bridge,” Morgan added. “Additionally, CTDOT would provide monetary assistance
for moving the bridge up to the amount that transport and disposal of the
structure would cost the agency if it were not reused.”
Morgan said it wouldn’t be the first time a bridge has been
relocated in the state. In the 1990s, he noted, Mansfield moved two bridges
that used to carry cars to the
Nipmuck Trail to instead carry pedestrians. During the same decade,
Canton acquired
a bridge on Route 6 in Farmington and reused it on Powder Mill Road.
More recently, DOT sought proposals for the relocation of
the Stiles
Bridge in East Windsor in 2023, but Morgan said the agency received no
responses. In Norwalk, no entity was able to reuse the entire Walk
Bridge, but parts of it will be repurposed, he said.
If no one expresses interest in the Cribari Bridge, and DOT
decides to move forward with a total replacement, “the bridge will be removed
to all state and federal standards, like any other bridge replacement project,”
Morgan said.
John Suggs of the Westport Preservation Alliance said
he's not supportive of the idea of moving the bridge elsewhere, arguing that
its location is a part of its historic significance.
“It’s not something that I’m too excited about or think is
very probable,” Suggs said.
He said his group has “consistently been advocating for the
preservation and the ongoing maintenance of the bridge rather than its
destruction.” It has also voiced concern about a new, larger bridge becoming a
draw for big trucks looking to avoid highway traffic.
Christopher Wigren, the deputy director of Preservation
Connecticut, said if DOT does decide to replace the bridge, it would be good to
find a new home for the historic structure. But he said he is unsure how likely
it is that any group would be able to take on a project to move
and repurpose a span of the Cribari Bridge's size while meeting all
of DOT's requirements.
“It would be a big job,” Wigren said.
The 287-foot-long, 26-foot wide, two-lane bridge carries an
average of about 13,000 vehicles every day, according to the environmental
assessment prepared by the state DOT and the Federal Highway Administration.
Its vertical and horizontal clearances are inadequate, the
assessment says, meaning there isn’t enough space for vehicles to easily cross
the bridge without hitting objects. School buses, for instance, are at risk of
clipping mirrors or the bridge’s trusses.
And because of the bridge’s “deteriorated condition,”
vehicles that weigh more than 20 tons cannot use it, the assessment states.
Eventually, the structure will be unable to support the weight of vehicles like
fire trucks and buses.
The span also has a substandard guardrail system, and the
mechanical and electrical equipment used to open and close the bridge is
situated under the deck, making it vulnerable to flood damage. The bridge
has gotten
stuck in the open position several times in recent years, the
assessment notes.
The “preferred alternative” is to replace the bridge where
it currently stands with a new one — a project that would cost an estimated $78
million to $86 million. Construction would take about three years.
Another option would be rehabilitating the bridge, which
would include higher vertical clearances for vehicles and the installation of a
new guardrail system and water-resistant equipment, for an estimated $50
million to $55 million.
But a replacement would have additional benefits, according
to the environmental assessment, including wider travel lanes, improvements for
pedestrians and bicyclists, more space for boats to pass under the bridge and
quicker bridge openings. The service life of a rehabilitated bridge would be 25
to 40 years, while a new bridge’s service life would be 75 to 100 years.
Officials dismissed the idea of leaving the existing bridge
in place and building a new bridge to the North or South. Such a project would
require “substantial property acquisitions,” and the existing bridge would
still need repairs, according to the assessment.
The report acknowledges that members of the public have
raised concerns about a new or upgraded bridge leading
to an uptick in truck traffic through the town but claims that such an
increase would be unlikely to happen.
“Since there are no improvements to the surrounding local
roadway network beyond the immediate project area, truck drivers are more apt
to continue to use I-95 or Route 1 to cross the Saugatuck River,” the report
states. “In addition, the Town of Westport can take the additional action of
imposing limitations on truck traffic along its local roads.”
A public
hearing on the draft environmental assessment is set to take place
March 19 at Westport Town Hall. DOT is also accepting
comments online until April 17.
State Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport, said he thinks
there is a way for both DOT's and town residents' needs to be met.
“I'm hopeful that the town and DOT can arrive at an
understanding that will bring this classic swing bridge up to current safety
standards — before we have a problem — while also addressing local traffic
concerns, particularly regarding big trucks,” Steinberg said.