The sellout crowd of more than 300 at the Greater Norwalk Chamber of Commerce”™s 126th Annual Dinner at Continental Manor in Norwalk came out loud, clear and strong for the $300 million mall planned by Chicago-based General Growth Properties Inc. for the 9-acre junction of West Avenue, Route 7 and Interstate 95, which remains in the permitting phase.
Chamber President and CEO Ed Musante, addressing the assembled, said the time had come to remove obstacles and build the mall. He said both Bloomingdale”™s and Nordstrom had agreed to sign on as tenants. His remarks were interrupted several times by applause for the project.
- Ed Musante, Greater Norwalk Chamber of Commerce president and CEO.
General Growth bought the land in 2013 for $34 million and has since publicized its plans with a series of public information sessions, including last fall at Stepping Stones Museum in Norwalk, where a sleek 700,000-square-foot floor plan was displayed.
“The feeling of great momentum is palpable,” Musante said. “We need to remove all the barriers to move this project forward ”” so it can move ahead without delay. We need to show that Norwalk is a place that welcomes investment.”
Musante said the mall meant good news for those who liked to shop. Incoming chamber executive committee Chairwoman Teresa Polley, who is president and CEO of the Financial Accounting Foundation, identified herself as such a person. The news that Bloomingdale”™s had agreed to join Nordstrom at the prospective mall prompted her to say, “Ed, you had me at Nordstrom”™s.”
A planned address by Gov. Dannell Malloy fell through at the last minute. He was replaced by state Department of Economic and Community Development Director Catherine Smith.
Smith joined the club of those who had battled traffic to attend ”“ due to a Bridgeport-to-Greenwich tie-up on northbound Interstate 95 ”” and said transportation was to be a cornerstone of the second-term Malloy administration. The governor, she said, would like a 30-year commitment of $100 billion to remake the state”™s transportation infrastructure, terming it “a general concept.”
“We have 12 million individual trips on Connecticut roads every day,” Smith said. “That”™s an enormous amount of traffic on a small amount of highways.” Hoped-for projects include roads, trains, bikeways and walkways.
“For jobs and businesses to grow, we need to have good transportation,” Smith said. She also said 95 percent of jobs lost to the recession had been reclaimed, “But we have a long way to go.”
Smith said the governor”™s proposed two-year budget had endured across-the-board cuts. “There”™s nothing left but bone and muscle,” she said. But she noted the appropriations and finance committees of the Legislature would parse the budget across the next month and offer their recommendations. She said the governor would dig in on further cuts to education and to municipalities even as “the Legislature is working hard to see if they can find better ideas.”
The presenting sponsors were Benefit Planning Services LLC and the Financial Accounting Foundation. GE Capital was the reception sponsor; Diageo provided the table wine; Pepperidge Farm provided the centerpieces; and Rick”™s Main Roofing provided the programs. Shrimp and cheese came from Stew Leonard”™s; oysters and clams came from Hillard Bloom Shellfish. The event special supplement was published by The Hour Publishing Co. The event”™s ice sculpture came from Dolce Norwalk Hotel & Conference Center.
