Peerless? Stamford Chelsea Piers celebrate opening
With Olympic gold medal skater Sarah Hughes and other luminaries on hand, Chelsea Piers Connecticut opened its massive Stamford sports facility for tours and information sessions in advance of camps and adult leagues kicking off July 9.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy calls Chelsea Piers nothing less than a new stage of Stamford”™s transition from what it once was ”“ a New England manufacturing city facing a dismal future ”“ into a magnet for people and businesses.
“Let me tell you what Chelsea Piers is bringing to the city of Stamford,” added Mayor Mike Pavia. “It brings a cachet that every mayor in the nation only wishes that they could have. In fact, there”™s already a buzz that”™s begun on the facility and deductively how Stamford (is) ”¦ a place where others should be.”
The 400,000-square-foot-plus facility features two ice rinks, an aquatics center and field house, among other draws.
By comparison, Chelsea Piers New York is triple the size; and the National Sports Center in Blaine, Minn., bills itself as the largest amateur sports facility in the world, with its 600 acres, including a “super rink” covering eight sheets of ice, a small stadium, field house and biking velodrome, surrounded by more than 50 outdoor playing fields and a golf course.
Chelsea Piers Connecticut is scheduled to open just 15 months after construction began, with Stamford-based AP Construction the general contractor and Norwalk-based James G. Rogers Architects leading the design team.
In all, some 900 people worked on the project, not including 400 to 600 related jobs. The facility will employ about 250 people.
“I cannot tell you the number of times I heard people say skeptically, ”˜You”™re going to open when?”™” said David Tewksbury, executive vice president of Chelsea Piers and head of the Connecticut operation. “Over the years we have looked at a number of cities in the United States, but we could never put together all the critical ingredients. Finding a 30-acre site with significant and large buildings in the heart of Fairfield County was like hitting the bull”™s eye.”
Chelsea Piers Chairman Roland Betts ”“ Rogers”™ onetime roommate at Yale University ”“ credited Tewksbury with spotting the potential in the abandoned Clairol plant that is now home to Chelsea Piers and soon NBC Sports. Betts dubs the new facility “an extraordinary cathedral” for sports.
“When we opened in New York, truth be told we really didn”™t have any idea what would happen,” Betts said. “We didn”™t have experience in this; we didn”™t know how to run a facility of the magnitude of (Chelsea Piers) New York. ”¦ But that”™s not the case here ”“ now we”™ve learned a great deal. We know exactly what we want do to and what we”™re going to do.”
“It is not so obvious that a manufacturing plant that made Clairol shampoo would be reborn as an athletic village,” said Tom Bernstein, president of Chelsea Piers. “But it also wasn”™t so obvious that shipping piers built 100 years ago in New York would turn into Chelsea Piers.”