BLT shows off new Vault Apartments in Stamford

BY ALEXANDER SOULE
Hearst Connecticut Media

When the first resident of The Lofts moved in four years ago, it wasn’t the lackluster surroundings of the South End apartment building ”“ converted from a shell of the former Yale & Towne factory ”“ that sealed the lease deal.

Quite a different view awaits the first inhabitant of the new Vault Apartments ”“ one block over ”“ scheduled for Tuesday.

In a figurative sense, developer Building and Land Technology comes full circle this week, opening the last of four apartment residences planned for the 20-acre site of Yale & Towne, once the city’s largest employer.

In the literal sense, the job is only half done, with the original master plan hammered out by BLT, its predecessor developer and the city of Stamford envisioning 4,000 residential units in all.

The Vault represents the tipping point toward that figure, with BLT now boasting 2,100 units of housing at Harbor Point and more on the way in the form of The Beacon, slated to open in the first quarter of next year.

If “development” was long the best term to describe Harbor Point, as cranes dominated the sky of the South End while construction trucks rumbled below, today BLT can swap in the homier tagline “neighborhood” for its signature project, which it has kept humming throughout the recession and lopsided recovery.

Stamford’s economic development director, Thomas Madden, was stumped trying to think of an analogy to Harbor Point in any other midsize city in the Northeast.

“There’s been ‘power centers’ and other kinds of centers, but not to this extent,” Madden said. “Just the amount of young people moving into Stamford ”“ there’s nothing like it.”

Hot market

New arrivals will be signing leases at the Vault Apartments at a clip of four or five a week, predicts Ted Ferrarone, chief operating officer of BLT. He said that to date, about half of Harbor Point’s residents have arrived from out of state, with another 20 percent moving from other towns in Fairfield County or Connecticut.

“In the beginning, when you open the first building up, you don’t have a lot of amenities, you don’t have a lot of the neighborhood,” Ferrarone said. “It’s so much nicer now. There’s thousands of people living here. There’s … 25 retailers down here.”

More are on the way. BLT aims next spring to open The Beacon, originally intended as the site of a waterfront hotel but converted to yet another Harbor Point residence in a continued hot market for apartment living. (Ferrarone does not rule out a future hotel somewhere in the Harbor Point district, where Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide has its headquarters).

If marveling at the pace of construction, new arrivals and the accompanying boost newcomers have given the city’s economy, longtime Stamford residents have not embraced all things Harbor Point without reservation. For every neighborly addition ”“ for instance Fairway Market or the outdoor skating rink that opened recently for the winter season ”“ other decisions have drawn critics, none more controversial than BLT’s stalled efforts to move a boat yard to make way for a new headquarters for Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, based in Westport.

Joggers and strollers

Asked how he thinks Stamford residents view BLT, Ferrarone did not tackle the question head on, re-framing it to address the triumvirate of BLT, the city and South End residents.

“We have a great vision ”“ and it’s basically the master plan we all worked on back in ’06 and ’07 ”“ to create a really active, 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week neighborhood,” Ferrarone said. “We’ve opened up about three quarters of a mile of the waterfront that was old industrial, and created a great park. If you come down there in the spring, you’re going to see people jogging and pushing strollers and walking their dogs. Five years ago, you couldn’t even get down there. So it’s pretty exciting.”

Ferrarone promises there is more to come. Even as BLT throws open the Vault to prospective tenants, more venues are in the offing, including the Italian eatery Fortina and the New York City chain Bareburger. And dog “spa” The Spot Experience will soon open on Pacific Street, offering all manner of grooming, training and other services for dogs, including cage-free overnight stays and access to a country farm for longer excursions in Putnam County, N.Y.

For many Harbor Point residents that moved into the development first and foremost to be closer to work, the leisurely accoutrements have finally caught up to the vision.

“If you came here last year (or) two years back, you would have seen great buildings but it wouldn’t necessarily feel like a neighborhood,” Ferrarone said. “Now, there’s a ton of people in the street. … People are in the restaurants, people are shopping in Fairway.”

Hearst Connecticut Media includes four daily newspapers: Connecticut Post, Greenwich Time, The Advocate (Stamford) and The News Times (Danbury). See stamfordadvocate.com for more from this reporter.