‘We expect some great plans’

City stakeholders, officials reviewing 21 proposals for riverfront renewal

MIDDLETOWN — The city is in the process of reviewing nearly twodozen requests for qualifications from firms interested in partnering with the city on its master plan for riverfront redevelopment, the most ever submitted for a city project, according to the mayor.

These proposals detail how companies would create a planning process, including gathering input from the public and city stakeholders, on a vision for what the Connecticut River at Harbor Park could look like in the future, Middletown Economic Development Specialist Thomas Marano said Friday. The area has been deemed prime real estate by officials.

Riverfront revitalization has been a decades-long effort.

The topic was discussed at Thursday’s Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce Central Business Bureau’s virtual monthly meeting.

A small group of people, including Chamber President Larry McHugh, have been reviewing the proposals thoroughly over the past week, Mayor Ben Florsheim said at the meeting.

Middletown Planning, Conservation and Development Director Joseph Samolis called these “major planning initiatives” at the meeting. “We are whittling down the impressive response of 21 firms that applied through the RFP, and, hopefully in the very near future, we’ll have that list narrowed down even further to narrow the process over the next year.”

Middletown architect and Town Planner Catherine Johnson; James Lima, Milone & MacBroom; WXY Architecture + Urban Design; and Yard and Co. are just some of the entities responding to the bid request.

“I think people are going to be really excited to see how exciting these proposals are, and how excited others are about coming to Middletown and working on our riverfront,” Florsheim said at the meeting.

“We’re proud of the responses we got from firms involved. We expect some great plans to come out of it,” Thomas Marano said Friday.

The public can visit middletownct.gov to view all the proposals.

Cassandra Day / Hearst Connecticut Media Downtown Middletown is seen from the Portland side of the Connecticut River.