After years of stalled action, development plans for apartment buildings are finally moving forward in downtown Stamford on Washington Boulevard and Park Place West.
The proposal includes plans for two luxury apartments ”“ reaching 15 and 18 stories each for a total of 417 new units ”“ and an extension to the Summer Street parking garage.
“This is a great moving-forward resolution on a space that was always meant to be developed,” said Laure Aubuchon, director of the office of economic development in Stamford.
The city has had urban renewal plans for the space for roughly 30 years, but when plans started to move forward in the late 1990s, opposition arose from the neighborhood.
The Urban Redevelopment Commission (URC) exercised eminent domain to buy the land under Curley”™s Diner for $233,000, but the owner, Maria Aposporos, said the offer wasn”™t enough. The city had plans to sell the land, to Corcoran Jennison Development for $4.6 million.
“$233,000?” asked Aposporos, who still owns the diner. “I couldn”™t buy (a) doghouse in the city of Stamford.”
Roughly 7,000 people signed a petition and the issue went all the way to the state Supreme Court in 2002, which ruled in Aposporos”™ favor. The land was not in disrepair and the city didn”™t have the right to sell it to a developer under eminent domain.
Now, 13 years later, Aposporos said she wouldn”™t have minded giving up the diner but that she didn”™t want to get “robbed” and “thrown out on the street” like other business owners.
“I wasn”™t going to be another victim,” Aposporos said. “This diner belongs to me.”
Corcoran Jennison last year submitted documentation to the URC indicating that it had spent more than $7 million on development plans for the area, including a $1.6 million loan to the URC to acquire Curley”™s Diner. Rather than litigate however, Trinity Financial Inc. stepped in and bought the development rights. The move has potentially saved the city from a $7 million lawsuit.
Jumpstarting the project, plans are moving forward. This time around they”™re building around the diner, said Marzuq Muhammad, assistant project manager at Trinity.
Approvals are expected next month and construction is to begin before the end of the year.
“As you can see from the renderings,” Muhammad said, “our proposed development will dramatically transform this area of downtown Stamford.”
Trinity has chosen to pay a $5 million fee in lieu of fulfilling Stamford”™s requirement that 10 percent of all new apartment buildings be affordable housing. But down the road, Trinity has agreed to give adjacent land to the Stamford Housing Authority to have affordable housing built with the company”™s fee.
Back at Curley”™s, Aposporos said she”™s still open to sell at a reasonable price, but doesn”™t have plans of leaving anytime soon. She said she likes the new developer and the city”™s new leaders, but said she plans to pass down the family business to the next generation.
“I want to be here,” she said. “I”™m happy to be here.”
