Bridgeport city officials are scheduled to join developer Urban Green Builders at 2:30 p.m. Thursday in a groundbreaking ceremony for a construction project to convert two run-down historic buildings into retail space and apartments.
The Jayson building, at 179 Middle St., and adjacent Newfield building, at 1184 Main St., will be joined and transformed into 104 apartments and 8,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space.
The developer has completed construction documents and submitted them for a permit. The goal is to complete the projects by the fourth quarter of 2015 or early 2016. Jayson will house 56 residential units, including 40 studios and 16 one-bedrooms, and Newfield will contain 48 new residences, consisting of 16 studios and 32 one-bedroom units.
An Urban Green affiliate has a master lease for the entirety of the ground-floor retail space at Jayson-Newfield. The retail subtenants will be affiliated with retailers that Urban Green operates, including restaurants Prune, Contrada and The Spinster Sisters, and bicycle stores Hastings Velo and NYC Velo.
“In Bridgeport, we’re making smart investments in the future,” Mayor Bill Finch said in a statement. “One example of this is our improving downtown. We still have a lot of work to do, but it’s getting better every day.”
Although Finch said Bridgeport’s Downtown North Historic District serves as a reminder of “broken promises from the past,” he added that revitalization will result in more high-quality housing options that are closer to public transportation and bound to create hundreds of new jobs.
The first phase of construction, accounting for environmental cleanup and building stabilization, was pegged at about $3 million. The cost for the second phase, to complete construction, was not disclosed.
The project will be financed by a combination of federal and state grants, loans and historic tax credits as well as developer equity.
