Despite Issues, City Hall Sees Positive Designs On Architectural Firm

Fletcher Thompson
Fletcher Thompson’s office Downtown. CT Post photo Brian Pounds.

From Brian Lockhart, CT Post:

After years building up architectural and engineering firm Fletcher Thompson’s recent move downtown, City Hall is responding to the firm’s financial troubles and fears about its future with a new message.

“Their future is almost irrelevant in some ways,” David Kooris, Bridgeport’s economic development head, told City Council members Tuesday.

What counts, Kooris said, is having the newly renovated, Mechanics & Farmers Bank building that the prestigious architect designed and rents from Forstone Capital back on the tax rolls.

Full story here.

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12 comments

  1. Can David Kooris Light please tell us exactly what the tax ramifications are on the tax rolls?

    Talk about an irrelevant statement.

    “Their future is almost irrelevant in some ways,” David Kooris, Bridgeport’s economic development head, told City Council members Tuesday.

    What counts, Kooris said, is having the newly renovated, Mechanics & Farmers Bank building that the prestigious architect designed and rents from Forstone Capital back on the tax
    rolls.

    I know that Foreskin Capital is opening up a Comedy Club. Maybe Kooris is going to do some standup at the Joker’s Wild!

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  2. Each journey begins with one small step, grasshopper …
    Bridgeport for decades has had land (some without contamination), buildings, both commercial and manufacturing, that were vacant and required significant renovation to meet modern usage, and a fiscal structure with valuation laxity and a significant mil rate to make investment more risky for investors.

    Gaining access to public funding opportunities or relief from full taxpayer status for a time and other fiscal magic has provided newcomers as investors with a way into the party while the long term business, commercial and residential property taxpayers fund at 100%.

    Isn’t it interesting, not one party (providing dollars, guarantees, or tax waivers) in the series of transactions placing FT as a tenant into the MF space and triggering major renewal was concerned about the operating status of FT as the basis for a flow of rental revenue?

    Perhaps if the Comedy Club effort is less successful than planned, the space might be dedicated to A Museum of Current Absurdity. This would balance the worldwide public sensibilities of the time of PT Barnum with a Museum in that block with a public space, no doubt not-for-profit, dedicated to the public gullibility around finances, both public and private of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Will we take advantage of this digital opportunity promptly? Time will tell.

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  3. “Their future is almost irrelevant in some ways,” David Kooris, Bridgeport’s economic development head, told City Council members Tuesday.
    But what else should we expect from the administration of an elected official who tells us “Sometimes democracy doesn’t work!!!”

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    1. Irrelevant also, I suppose, are all the businesses that have failed downtown due to lack of support from the Finch administration and the BRBC. Kooris, in addition to saying Fletcher Thompson’s issues are irrelevant also says churning is a part of doing business in redeveloping areas. Tell that to the people who believed Bridgeport is getting better every day. Tell that to their bank accounts and their families. The callousness of Kooris and his boss is sickening. I wonder where delusion and self-promotion ends with these jokers …

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  4. Hholy moly! This is embarassing, to make a statement like “Their future is almost irrelevant in some ways.” a few months after Finch made the relocation of this company a cornerstone of “the rebuilding of downtown,” is mind boggling. I can only imagine what developers/outsiders must think of this. Does Mr. Kooris have free reign to put any statements he wants out there without checking with others first?

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  5. Wow, David! “Irrelevant?!”

    In your capacity as councilman for the City of Stamford, would you vote to provide assistance and funding to have Fletcher Thompson relocate to your city?

    Well, I guess you probably would (if it meant using the Bridgeport space for Stamford workforce housing, or some such thing), since money is no object in Stamford. Your buddy, Dan, throws money at Stamford as if Connecticut had a $100 billion surplus: $120 million for Bridgewater (which you actually rejected!; another $100 million for Charter Communications; $20 million for UBS.

    Speaking of Bridgewater, David; why, in your role as Bridgeport Economic Development Director, didn’t you make a loud, public pitch for Bridgewater to come to Bridgeport after Stamford rejected them?

    Don’t you think Bridgewater would have made a nice fit for Steel Point or Downtown?

    David, David. You’re not doing the job for Bridgeport. (You’re helping to do a job on Bridgeport!)

    It’s time to tell Dan you don’t want to work in Bridgeport anymore. People are catching on to you and your boss and they don’t want either of you here anymore.

    (We need to watch out, because if David Kooris goes back to Stamford, there’s likely to be a swap and we’ll wind up with that modern-art-monstrosity-loving, bank-killing, mis-director of economic development, Mike Freimuth.)

    Woe is us. No matter which way we look, we’re screwed!

    Maybe Hillary will come to our rescue! (Just like Obama did.)

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  6. So Bridgeport’s director of Economic Development believes the types of tenants Forstone Capital leases to in a building in which the Bridgeport taxpayers have already lost a bucket of money should be of no concern to us.
    Go away David, PLEASE. Do not return. You would be thrown off the council in Stamford if you even thought of making such bold absurd statements in your own town.
    Go, just go away. PLEASE.

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  7. Maybe it is David and Bill’s thinking along these lines that results in something like this:
    Now this is very interesting.
    I looked up Premiere Construction Mac LLC (featured as a minority contractor to do work on Steal Point as well as a Getting Better Every Day spokesman) on the Secretary of State’s CONCORD website and lo and behold no business was listed under that name. Nor was Premiere Construction Mac. There were two Premiere Construction companies, one Premiere Construction Group LLC out of Greenwich CT and another Premiere Construction Inc out of NYC. And I could not find any taxpaying entity with a variation of that name.
    I did find a Marshan Coleman listed. I am happy to report he is current on his real estate taxes but appears to be delinquent to the tune of $13,154 in motor vehicle taxes.
    So David, am I just being silly looking to the future to see how this plays out? Is this one of those irrelevant situations the Finch Administration just tends to ignore?

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