Over the course of a quarter century, the city of Shelton has never been able to lure its Italian Renaissance-inspired developer Bob Scinto to spur a rebirth of its gritty riverfront district.
Scinto, however, was not above adopting a piece of downtown for his ever expanding city-on-a-hill of offices and luxury residences.
International Place, which R.D. Scinto Inc. completed last year and which quickly drew A-list tenants like General Electric Co. and Energizer Holdings Inc., is also the newest home of Liquid Lunch, a hip deli launched nearly five years ago by Fred Bialek, the former executive chef of Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., and his wife Michele Bialek who grew up in Shelton and has long witnessed attempts to revitalize the downtown city core contrasted with the empire Scinto has built the past two decades in the hills overlooking the city.
More than any other person or entity, the Bialeks and Liquid Lunch may best sum up the schism that is Shelton, where corporate managers stand shoulder-to-shoulder at lunch counters with owners and workers of the smorgasbord of small businesses that dot drags like River Road and Bridgeport Avenue. In the first of a continuing series this year, the Fairfield County Business Journal is examining the tales of two economies throughout the region”™s cities and towns ”“ how the recession is affecting those laboring behind the desk in the corner office, or behind the register in the corner store; and the perils and opportunities for both.
In the case of Shelton, the contrast is particularly evident given Scinto”™s status as the largest owner of commercial offices in eastern Fairfield County; and a historic district downtown reminiscent of Norwalk”™s SoNo district that has attracted a mix of upscale retail businesses and attractions like the Maritime Aquarium.
If SoNo illustrates the possibilities of rehabilitating decrepit industrial districts, Scinto”™s office parks are emblematic of the potential for out-of-the-box thinking on new construction: from the replica of Michelangelo”™s sculpture of David and other works R.D. Scinto displays for tenants, to the Tuscan-villa-inspired architecture of Il Palio restaurant just down the hill.
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” said David Brennan, owner of John J. Brennan Construction Co. Inc. in Shelton, which built many of the brick buildings in the city”™s river mill district over more than a century. “I”™ve talked to plenty of people in Shelton that don”™t want to see Shelton become Manhattan. But I have talked to plenty of other people that have wanted to see Bob Scinto go there because everything he does is magnificent.”
For his part, Scinto has long seen any SoNo-style rebirth of downtown Shelton has a problematic proposition, in part due to a sharp elevation just off the riverfront that limits a developer”™s options.
“It”™s a tough parking situation over there,” Scinto said. “You”™ve got 37 acres in all of downtown.”
Michele Bialek recalls she and her husband Fred thinking along similar lines through the prism of restaurant entrepreneurs hoping to attract a lunchtime business.
“I always through downtown would be a great location for a café,” Michele Bialek said. “But when we were looking at locations, we actually laughed because it was such a ghost town.”
It would not be long not before downtown Shelton diners were finding their way to Liquid Lunch; and in time, corporate suits from Scinto”™s office parks and others in the area would find the neighborhood dining spot.
One of those repeat visitors was Scinto himself, who suggested the Bialeks set up shop in his International Place under construction at 6 Research Drive, within eyeshot of his recently constructed Renaissance luxury apartment and condominium building, now the centerpiece of his office parks for which he hopes to attract an array of service businesses.
St. Louis-based Energizer Holdings Inc. leased 81,000 square feet at International Place last year, the largest transaction in the county in the first half of 2008, with Survey Sampling International Inc. also relocating there from its former headquarters in Fairfield. Leasing continues in the building, which is called International Place; last month, Gray Wolf Sensing Inc. took a lease on 4,000 square feet of space, and General Electric Co. operates a data center in the building.
Combined, Shelton and Stratford had a 12.5 percent vacancy rate in 22 of their best office buildings, which according to Cushman & Wakefield Inc. is within what brokers consider a healthy point of equilibrium for Fairfield County.
“The Shelton corridor is actually doing pretty well right now,” said Jim Fagan, senior managing director of Cushman & Wakefield”™s Fairfield County operations.
The city”™s collection of smaller, cheaper class B offices had a 17.2 percent vacancy rate, however, among the bottom quarter of a dozen submarkets tracked by Cushman & Wakefield.
For their part, the Bialeks say both Shelton locations have held up well in the recession to date, as word spreads through the Scinto office parks of the new location at International Place ”“ with ample parking for patrons of Liquid Lunch.
The business is named for Fred Bialek”™s cauldron of 300-plus soup recipes developed over the years at Stratford-based Sikorsky; and the International Place kitchen includes space for corporate catering accounts the couple hopes to corral.
As for the most popular sandwich Liquid Lunch serves to attract brown-baggers in a recession? At International Place it could be the Santa Fe (chili garlic chicken, chipotle aioli), Michele Bialek mused; downtown, it is almost certainly the Venice (grilled Portabello, pesto).
Perhaps it was a taste of the old country that inspired Scinto to bring the upscale flavors of downtown to his city on a hill.
