Doubly connected by the Metro-North New Haven and Amtrak lines, Bridgeport plans to further embrace trains by redeveloping a vacant armament property as the city”™s second train station, operable in four years.
The 8-acre, East Side property was acquired in a tax foreclosure, carved from the 25-acre Remington Arms Co. site, which saw the production of bullets and shell cases during World War II.
Bridgeport received a $25,000 federal grant to conduct a feasibility study for the proposed train station. The study demonstrated that the property, which DuPont bought in the 1980s and remediated, could provide value and spur economic growth.
“We then received a state grant through the support of state Senator (Andres) Ayala (Jr.), to demolish several hundred thousand square feet of vacant buildings on this site,” said David Kooris, director of planning and economic development in Bridgeport. “The ground is red with crushed brick used to fill the site. We completed the demolition a few months ago.
“Now we have the funding to move those conceptual plans from the study to a final design and start the permitting process, so we can move toward construction,” he said.
The state Bond Commission on Friday is expected to approve $2.75 million for the hiring of a consultant to start the engineering, design and environmental permitting process for Barnum Train Station. The project is slated to be shovel ready by 2017 and fully operational by 2018.
The total cost of the train station project could range from $50 million to $200 million, depending on the funding available, said Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch. That cost factor also contributes to the value of the land surrounding the second train station, he added.
“The bigger the station, the more expensive, but the higher the land value,” Finch said. “If I build something that”™s the size of Stamford”™s train station, the land around it becomes more valuable because it has greater capacity and more ridership, and it will contribute more public money. A smaller train station has less economic development and smaller ridership. We have a public-private partnership, and a significant amount of that money will come from the private sector, so it”™s going to be awhile before we know how much.”
The site for the train station is in Bridgeport”™s medical district. It is surrounded by Bridgeport Hospital, which is part of the Yale New Haven Health System.
Thousands of people rely on the Metro-North to move between different hospitals in the network. The fact that a train station is developing in the hospital”™s backyard could greatly improve the convenience of transportation for the region’s hospital workforce and remove reasons to drive, reducing traffic congestion on Interstate 95 and the Merritt Parkway, Kooris said.
Once the site is developed, it could provide a market for new residential, retail and/or office parks, which could generate up to $10 million in property tax revenue, Bridgeport officials have said.
