From city Communications Director Av Harris:
Mayor Joe Ganim today joined New York-based developer Gary Flocco of Corvus Capital, LLC to highlight a major urban renewal project slated to begin construction within weeks in Bridgeport’s West End. The Cherry Street Lofts project, once complete, will constitute a $120 Million development that will transform the former Bassick Casters industrial building into more than 300 units of state-of-the-art mixed income housing, in addition to the new home of the Great Oaks Charter School.
The construction will also include housing for teachers at the school and the complex of buildings will also contain a power generation unit. The project is financed by the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority and funded in large part by the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust Fund, the first of this type of housing investment of its kind in the country. Demolition is set to begin at part of the site located at 1341 Railroad Avenue within the next two weeks, which will turn into parking for the new housing development. Following the major economic development announcement, Mayor Ganim began the demolition by climbing on board an earth mover and operating the machinery himself.
“This old tired set of factory buildings is literally about to be transformed before our eyes to fabulous new housing that will be a great attraction to a younger generation of people looking for that urban living experience with easy access to transportation,” said Mayor Ganim. “This is a continuation of redevelopment on the West End of Bridgeport that has been years in the making. We are grateful to Corvus Capital for their vision of what could be in Bridgeport, and the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority for financing this project with the help of the AFL-CIO housing investment fund. In Bridgeport, projects like this are literally turning blight into beauty and we are so proud of the momentum we are building!”
Gary Flocco, Chief Executive Officer of Corvus Capital, LLC, the developer of the project, said, “The city of Bridgeport could not have been more helpful in making this project come to fruition. We are creating a real neighborhood in this community. There will be retail shops, educational facilities, and entertainment. We are bringing this whole area back in a major way and representing Bridgeport for all the people that pass by on the highway and on the railroad. This is also a terrific opportunity to be able to preserve historic sites and use them in a new way and retrofit them. Everything will be built with green, environmental consciousness in mind. We will have our own power plant on site producing our own electricity, heat and hot water through co-generation. We are focused on a long-term investment in Bridgeport.
The Bassick Casters building has significant American industrial history. It was the home of American Graphophone that manufactured some of the earliest mass-produced commercial recordings of music, later acquired by Columbia records. It was on this site that Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, developed the prototype for the movie projector after receiving financing from famed Bridgeport Mayor and entrepreneur P.T. Barnum. American Dictaphone was produced there. The closing on Financing for the Phase One Housing (157 apartments) is scheduled for this month, November. Construction of the Phase One Housing (including demo) would start thereafter and take 24 months to be completed. Closing on the Financing for the Charter School is scheduled for February 2017, with construction complete by June of 2018.
AND ANOTHER PROJECT from the Finch Administration. JOE GANIM, YOU ARE NOT FOOLING US.
LOL.
Wow. What do we have here? A project partially financed by a corrupt state agency (CHFA) that just improperly awarded an inflated severance package to a no-show director who has been deemed inappropriate by state auditors (see CT POST, 11/1/16, “Ex-housing head got $251,000 separation deal,” by Ken Dixon), and partially financed by the AFL-CIO, a UNIONIZED labor organization. So here we have a workforce-housing project that was financed by one of the Malloy Administration’s crony-infested corrupt agencies, working in tandem with a UNIONIZED labor organization, under dubious auspices, to provide cheap, NON-UNION LABOR for a problematically overdeveloped, economically favored part of the state, which will be supported/partially underwritten by one of the state’s poorest, most underserved cities. As usual, Bridgeport gets the expense and Stamford gets the benefits. (I wonder why. And from whence does Dan Malloy hail?) And to add a little bit of irony to this; the site was one of Bridgeport’s premier industrial-employment sites for the better part of a century. Now it is one more addition to Stamford’s servants quarters, the BRIDGEPORT ANNEX section of Stamford (currently managed by The Bridgeport Political Group, Inc., Joe Ganim, President, with services underwritten by The Taxpayers of Bridgeport Spending and Loan Association).
Now, the taxpayers of Bridgeport are supposed to jump with joy about this added, Bridgeport-job-depleting expense to Bridgeport taxpayers! And Joe Ganim wants credit for this ill-conceived Finch Administration initiative (which no doubt helped the latter set up his Gold Parachute and land that New York Thruway Director’s job).
Okay, Joe. You want credit for this latest Bridgeport financial albatross? We’ll give it to you, and the City Council, in time for the up-coming council elections.
And you can have credit for the planned waterfront power plant that will bring even more tax-devaluing, polluting, regional power infrastructure (including new, dangerous gas lines and polluting diesel fuel storage sites along with another aesthetically-pleasing 250-ft smokestack) to Bridgeport’s potentially golden, valuable waterfront. (Sounds “green” to me! How about you, Joe Gresko?)
Really. This is shameful, an infuriating. More $#@!, taxpayer-bashing development for a city hanging on by its fingernails.
And the Administration is shamelessly trying to hype this as something great for Bridgeport?! I guess it is great, if you’re trying to curry favor with the Gold Coast-Suburban clique running things in Hartford these days.
“F$%# Bridgeport! It’s dead anyway.” Right?
Who wrote this media release? Bassick Casters industrial building? It’s the former Casco plant. More subsidized housing. This is development?
This is like dorm housing with up to four beds per unit. Great Oaks Charter School is being included because the land is contaminated, therefore by adding a school the developer is able to earn additional tax credits for the school, job creation and remediation.
The tax credits that just keep on giving, but what the hell. Let’s keep putting black and brown children in schools on contaminated property because all that matters is $$$$$$$$$.