‘NO SLOWDOWN’ IN STAMFORD
Despite the pandemic, development projects popping up across the city
STAMFORD — Even during the worst of the pandemic, demand for development in Stamford remained strong.
Though prices for steel and lumber reached incredible heights during the summer months, cranes remain spotted across the skyline, spurred by a steady stream of developers pitching apartment buildings and mixed-used spaces to the zoning and planning boards.
According to a map from the city Department of Economic Development, there are at least 36 projects in the works throughout Stamford, ranging from a 500-plus-unit tower to a glistening headquarters for a telecommunications giant. Other cities struggled to keep growth coming during a pandemic that crippled the nation, but Stamford seems to have continued on its growth spurt.
“We had no slowdown,” Director of Economic Development Thomas Madden said. “It was an acceleration, if anything.”
Here is a list of a halfdozen development projects that are underway, or in the planning stages, that could remake or reorient parts of the city.
According to a map from the city Department of Economic Development, there are at least 36 projects in the works throughout Stamford.
Charter Communications World HQ
Progress on the twobuilding headquarters for Stamford-based Charter Communications — which markets to consumers under the Spectrum name — has been a long time coming. The company announced in 2017 that it would relocate from its blocky current building on Atlantic Street to a tailormade structure just south of Interstate 95, a move that kept existing workers in Stamford and suggested an expanded local workforce.
Once built, the new headquarters — which consists of two buildings — will be the only property in the city to have “direct train platform access to Metro North and Amtrak” at the Stamford Transportation Center. The first Charter building opened earlier in 2021. The complex’s developer Building and Land Technology declined to provide a timeline as to when the second building will be completed.
According to the company’s website, Charter is the second-largest cable company in the United States, operating in more than 30 million households across 41 states.
But the road to building a crystalline commercial utopia has been littered with some road bumps.
Though now home to hundreds of square feet dedicated to state-of-the-art office space, the Charter lot once housed a 960-spot state garage operated by the state.
Although a new garage is slated to open on South State Street, paving the way for a new headquarters meant paying out major money to the city to help accommodate commuters (even during a pandemic) and ensuring train travelers are never strapped to find a spot.
The Smyth
Until midway through the year, construction workers were steadily streaming in and out of the massive complex across the way from Stamford Government Center.
The Smyth, a 414-unit structure that takes up the entire block on Washington Boulevard between Bell Street and Tresser Boulevard, came together like Lego blocks. Then, progress halted abruptly and the steady stream of construction workers was no more.
Construction stopped on the near-finished building because its contractor, the embattled construction startup Katerra, shuttered suddenly in June. City officials told The Stamford Advocate then that The Smyth’s developer, Lennar Multifamily Communities, was on the hunt for a partner to finish the project.
That hunt has ended, according to Madden.
“They have started construction again ... and so I believe they want to start leasing by spring 2022,” he said.
First approved in 2019, The Smyth replaced one of the three St. John’s Towers — built as an affordable housing complex during Stamford’s urban renewal era in the 1960s.
Former B&S Carting Site
Before work on the two plots of land on Woodland Avenue and Walter Wheeler Drive in the South End can begin, the parcel’s journey from Stamford to the state Supreme Court must end.
The Zoning Board has already approved 540 apartments on one parcel, which borders Pacific Street, after long and contentious public hearings in fall 2020. However, that approval relies on Connecticut’s justices ruling in favor of BLT — the dominant South End developer — in the coming months.
The city Planning Board in 2019 approved changes to the Master Plan — Stamford’s governing planning document — that would allow BLT to put up more than 650 units on a South End contested block, commonly called the old B&S Carting site. Residents filed a petition to block the Master Plan amendment, which the Board of Representatives ultimately affirmed.
Whether the board had the right to affirm said petition has become the subject of endless legal debate. Lawyers representing the Board of Representatives and BLT respectively presented their arguments to the high court in September. Once the court decides, the site’s true future can start to unfold.
677 Washington Blvd.
There are plenty of tall buildings in Stamford. Parc Stamford, formerly known as Trump Parc, and the distinctive Landmark building soar up above Downtown. Towers spike up along the Harbor Point boardwalk, giving the lucky few who live up high panoramic views.
But a building pitched in February by Stamford Washington Investors, affiliated with Californiabased real estate firm AVG Partners, could beat out all the rest.
Alongside architecture firm Perkins Eastman, the company proposed a 34story futurist needle in the undeveloped parking lot next to the former UBS trading floor on Washington Boulevard.
Zoning Board Chairman David Stein dubbed the proposal “one of the nicest buildings” that had come before the board “in a long time,” a sentiment that the full board backed with their votes.
Though there has been no progress on the building since the initial approval, the board greenlit the firm’s vision for 36,880 square feet of retail space along the street, plus 404 one- and two-bedroom apartments soaring high above.
Harbor Point Parcel Six
BLT is set to build 180units at the end of Dyke Lane in the Sound End for a yet-unnamed property dubbed Harbor Point Parcel 6. But the company’s final vision for the property may shift if it secures a necessary approval from the zoning board at its upcoming meeting.
BLT wants to pay $1.8 million into the Affordable Housing Trust instead of building dedicated affordable housing units within the property.
“Despite having constructed 359 on-site affordable housing units in the South End and Waterside neighborhoods, we know through feedback from our community partners that there is a segment of the population that is largely underserved,” BLT CoPresident Ted Ferrarone said in a statement.
Before Stamford enacted its Affordable Housing Trust Fund in early 2021, the city tasked developers with finding community partners if they wanted to meet their affordable housing obligations through fee-in-lieu dollars. Now, the money gets paid into the fund directly. Community organizations can then make bids for the money to finance their projects.
Garden Homes affordable housing
City developers who don’t pay out their affordable housing obligations in Stamford are required to include units for people who make a fraction of the regional area median income in their buildings. The Below Market Rate housing program mandates that every large, new building in Stamford dedicates 10 percent of its stock of affordable housing, creating government-mandated affordable apartments.
It’s less common for developers to build new, “naturally affordable” housing, but 1315 Washington Blvd. fits the bill. Built by development company Garden Homes Management, the 187-unit building will include units cheaper than normal for Stamford, according to Garden Homes President Richard Freedman, but will market for “$300 or $400 a month less than comparable new construction.”
The building will also include 41 BMR apartments.
Freedman said work on the property would conclude by fall 2021. Freedman also said he hopes the property will be completely leased out in six months.