More development?
Zoning change means oil company out, waterfront high rise in
STAMFORD — Selling a South End property that houses oil tanks on the waterfront could bring Stamford closer to a 100-yearlong goal.
The city’s zoning board approved changes unanimously on Monday to a waterfront property owned currently by oil company Sprague Resources. Sprague hopes to sell the lot, which was zoned for industrial uses tied to Stamford’s port. But instead of another industrial site, high rise development
is set to take its place.
The city also gets a bonus — access to the waterfront that could mean a continuous greenway from Downtown to the South End, a perk that Sprague Energy and its land use consultant, Richard Redniss, made clear.
“This is all about how can we leverage future development to make that connection that the city wants,” Redniss told the zoning board.
Until this week, the Sprague oil terminal meant a
gap in public access to the waterfront from the South End. To the south of the terminal lies Harbor Point and its boardwalk system. Directly to the north, Waterside Park hugs the Long Island Sound behind houses.
Sprague Energy selling its property presents an opportunity for the city that dates back to the early 20th century.
Stamford first floated the idea of maximizing public space meant for walking in 1926, when it passed the city’s first Master Plan. At the time, city planner Herbert Swan emphasized the need for public parks throughout the city. Even as more people ditched leisurely days in the park for long drives meant to admire nature, Swan saw the public park as an asset for public good.
“There is no diminution in the need for large city parks,” Swan wrote. “The need for them is increasing. Never before has there been a keener appreciation of the need for public recreation than to-day.”
Swan’s dreams of large parks throughout the city evolved over the course of a century. Eventually, the Mill River Collaborate took on Swan’s lofty goal. On top of rebuilding Stamford’s own Central Park, the Collaborative has another objective — connecting public spaces across the city with a continuous greenway.
Under then-Mayor Dannel P. Malloy, the Collaborative published the Mill River Park & Greenway Master Plan in 2007. The park formally opened in 2013, and a trickle of advances have come since then.
But the Sprague property’s rezoning and sale could usher in a new era.
“It’s really a milestone agreement,” said Mill River Collaborative Chair Arty Selkowitz. “The Collaborative has been working on it since the summer with Sprague and all the interested parties. It’s really a terrific win-win for everyone, and it will bring us one step closer to a continuous greenway from Scalzi Park to Harbor Point.”
Selkowitz said there have been other wins for the greenway too, like a private donor who agreed to renovate Waterside Park. Construction of the new Charter Communications headquarters in the South End is also slated to end this year, and the project comes with public access along the Rippowam River.
The city’s Master Plan maintains that “All shorefront development shall include meaningful public access to the waterfront except where public safety would be a risk.”
Sprague has yet to sell its Stamford location, even though the company already plans to move to a new site in Bridgeport. The most interested buyers so far, according to Redniss, have been senior living facilities. But the new zoning rules could change that.
“The secret to land use, in terms of development, is reducing the unknown,” Redniss said. “Now you know what Master Plan category, you know what zone you’re in, you know what it allows — the floor area, the density, the height, the setbacks. There’s a lot more known than we knew before.”