Mayor Martin boasts of Stamford’s desirability in State of the City address
Stamford Mayor David Martin”™s recent State of City address to the local business community was marked by numerous positive indicators of the city”™s growth with only sparse mention of the challenges facing the state”™s second-largest, and fastest-growing, city.
Beginning with the city’s finances, Martin touted Stamford”™s Standard & Poor”™s AAA bond rating, which has allowed the city to receive low interest rates when it seeks support for bonds and refinancing, he said.
“We can fund capital projects at a lower rate, which means we have lower taxes because of it,” Martin told the Stamford Chamber of Commerce at the Stamford Hilton hotel on April 7.
“That is something that is pretty rare for a community over 100,000 people and it is pretty rare for a city that is diverse as ours,” he said.
Among the many points of pride highlighted by Martin was his recent $536 million budget proposal, which included no service cuts, a smaller tax increase (3.8 percent) than years prior and considerable progress in corralling massive employee benefit obligations exerting pressure on the budget.
In 2016-2017 the total amount spent on city employee benefits is expected to jump by 13.9 percent to over $65 million from the previous fiscal year and account for 30.7 percent of the city”™s operating budget.
“Pension and retiree health benefits are the single most important driver of our expenses,” he said. “When you have got almost a third of your budget increasing almost 14 percent a year, you are going to be severely challenged. If this trend continues, we would basically have half of the city budget going to employee benefits primarily pensions and OPEB (other post-employment benefits).”
But Martin said significant progress on benefits has been made, including a historic first for the city.
According to Martin, two thirds of the city employees have signed contracts or entered into agreements that address long-term OPEB and pension obligations in addition to the city fully funding required OPEB and pension contributions for the first time in its history.
“As I have said before, we will put more money into our pension funds under my four years than any mayor has ever put into pension funds ever in any four year period up until me,” Martin said. “We have a long way to go. It is going to take many years, but we are making a good start.”
Throughout his address Martin repeatedly emphasized Stamford”™s strong financial footing and growing prowess as being among the most desirable urban areas for business and growth.
While the state has been decreasing in population since 2014, Fairfield County has seen modest growth and Stamford’s population has been burgeoning since 2008. The city recently overtook Hartford as the state”™s second-largest city behind Bridgeport and is on track to rise to a population of nearly 130,000 by year”™s end if projections hold true, Martin said.
And while the state is having trouble growing and retaining its population, particularly among the young professional millennial generation, Stamford has been an exception with huge demand driving the ongoing development boom of apartment buildings in the city, Martin said.
He noted the 675 residential units across three recent building developments that opened for occupancy in the last several months in addition to six other residential buildings currently under construction throughout the downtown and waterfront areas.
“They”™re filling fast,” he said.
Stamford”™s commercial occupancy rates still have ample room for improvement, but Martin noted progress in that arena as well. Over the last 12 months commercial occupancy rates dropped from more than 25 percent to approximately 20 percent, but martin admits more progress needs to be made.
“We believe we actually have more employees in Stamford now than we had before the recession started in 2008-2009, but they are in much smaller office space,” he said. “We actually know in some buildings there are more employees than previously yet there are floors for rent. This is creating a real challenge for us.”
He noted that in 2015 newly signed leases occupied more than 640,000 square feet of space, particularly due to acquisitions by the financial firms Bridgewater Associates (137,000 square feet) and Synchrony Financial (312,000 square feet).
He attributes Stamford”™s desirability to a variety of factors including the city”™s national recognition as a center for business.
“Stamford is the largest concentration of firms in finance outside of Manhattan in the United States,” he said. “Even in the current economic climate, [Stamford] is recognized nationally and internationally for being a strong business center.”
Despite the widely perceived blow to the state and county with the impending departure of Fairfield headquartered General Electric, Martin said the company”™s relocation to Boston will have a minimal impact on Stamford, but the same could not be said for Stamford-based Starwood Hotels & Resorts and their increasingly likely acquisition by Marriott International hotels.
“We are nervous about Starwood,” he said. “It is possible they will move down to Bethesda (Md.).”
Overall, Martin said he and his administration are very positive about Stamford”™s economic climate and project continued growth in the years to come.
“Our goal is to make this the best place to live in this whole state and in fact the whole New York metro area,” he said. “The better we make this place to live the more people will want to live here and that”™s what”™s happening, we are seeing that influx of people.”