John P. “Jack” Condlin, 66 and with 16 years as president and CEO of the Stamford Chamber of Commerce, arrived in Stamford in 1981 as executive director of the Stamford Redevelopment Commission, having served in a similar post in Willimantic.
“People say Stamford”™s streets are paved with gold,” he said in the chamber”™s Summer Street offices recently. “They”™re not. But what Stamford has done is take advantage of its location. The city has made mistakes, as we all do, but never were they detrimental to Stamford”™s spirit. It was always a city on the move” ”” the Stamford rail station became No. 2 in ridership behind only Grand Central Terminal in the regional corridor in the 1970s ”” “and always a city of the future.
“When I came here I knew I wanted to stay,” he said. “And the city we have today ”” all that it has become ”” is the reason I stayed.”
The city is visible to many via elevated Interstate 95, where skyscraping growth is concentrated and signs beam Thomson Reuters, Elizabeth Arden, RBS and UBS into the clouds. But the city is a robust 37.64 square miles with a 2012 population of 125,000. It is an equidistant 41 miles from New York City and New Haven.
Condlin called the recent recession “the worst economy that 90 percent of people who are living have seen.” But he offered optimism, seeing recent documented growth continuing. “Not as much as in the past, nor as much as it will be in the future,” he said. “But given the tidal in-and-out, I”™d say we have a good economy. The three principals of real estate apply to Stamford: location, location, location; proximity to New York City is an undeniable advantage.
“Timing, too,” he said. “In the early 1970s, things were so bad in New York City that Johnny Carson was telling New York City jokes. And Stamford was the first city in Connecticut, waiting with its arms open for the companies that were fleeing New York.”
Across his 34 years in Stamford, Condlin said success has begotten success. He singled out One Landmark Square, completed in 1973 and for the next 35 years the tallest building between New York City and New Haven, as a notable catalyst. Other successes have included the public/private partnership between the city and the Stamford-based F.D. Rich Co. in developing the city center, instead of a welter of builders. “This was one idea that separated Stamford from other cities ”” the management of the city”™s urban renewal,” said Condlin. “Stamford was no different than any other city in the ”™50s and ”™60s, but for urban renewal it followed a different path.”
F.D. Rich Co. is also co-developing, with New Jersey-based Ironstate Development Co., the site known as “the hole in the ground,” a 4.3-acre depression on Tresser Boulevard that blighted Stamford for two decades and which, by year”™s end, should show signs of activity leading to 800 apartments, restaurants and offices.
And, said Condlin, “Amtrak setting up the Acela in Stamford does two things. It gives Stamford residents a great opportunity to use Amtrak. And it speaks volumes for what Stamford has to offer.
“When I arrived there was a central hole in the donut of no residential housing downtown other than subsidized residences,” he said. “I felt ”” and it was no secret; I was not alone ”” that in-town living was the secret to a 24/7 city. Stamford was the first city with inclusionary residential housing equations that featured affordable housing. It has led to the development of thousands and thousands of residential units in the city.”
The city is to some degree racing to catch up to its own success or at least merrily chugging in that direction. The BLT-funded Harbor Point Trolley effectively unifies development east and west of I-95 with an old-fashioned-looking bus. It connects UConn Stamford, Harbor Point Square and a dozen other stops Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.; and Sunday, 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. The chamber distributes trolley literature, which boasts the attributes “quick, safe, convenient and free.”
The chamber keeps tabs on who works in the city and what they earn. Its data find disproportionate numbers ”” 28,380 and 160 ”” work in business/finance and farming, respectively. It charts Stamford”™s top 10 employers (the city is No. 1 at 3,009 employees and UBS is No. 2 with 2,500). Among the fastest-growing jobs, home health care is tops, up 53 percent in the last decade; but veterinarians, too, are in demand, up 33.9 percent since 2004. Among the chamber”™s tasks is to monitor government regulations in members”™ areas of interest.
Before he spoke for more than an hour, Condlin had been at a business lunch that featured him, an executive with Nestlé Water and a businessperson eager to earn access to Nestlé Water. “Much of what we do is as business facilitators,” he said of the chamber and of his lunch. The chamber”™s membership fills a slickly produced 96-page membership guide modeled on Time magazine. Members span A. Vitti Excavators to Zody”™s 19th Hole Restaurant, with about 850 member-businesses in between. Categorically, the chamber spans accounting to wireless communication, with slots for diverse goods and services from retail fireplaces to the arts to cloud computing.
The chamber is 27 years old. Condlin said it remains true to its mission: “Simply to make Stamford the best place to live and work.”
