The Bridgeport Economic Development Corp. is among six state municipalities and organizations receiving state grants to help remediate and redevelop clusters of blighted properties, or brownfields, and put them back into productive use.
The Bridgeport group has been awarded a $200,000 grant to create a comprehensive implementation strategy to remediate and redevelop the Bridgeport Brass Project Area. The area is located in the geographic center of the city, approximately one-third of a mile north of Bridgeport”™s central business district and intermodal center, and provides the opportunity to optimize transportation and waterfront access and site use.
“Blighted properties are an eyesore in neighborhoods and drive down property values,” Gov. Dannel Malloy said in announcing the grants. “By making investments in these scarred, abandoned and otherwise unusable parcels of land, we can attract many more times that amount back in private investments while also making communities more attractive to business and job growth.”
Others receiving state grants, which total $1 million, are the city of Ansonia, the towns of Naugatuck, New Milford and Thompson, and the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments.
This is the second round of grants to be awarded by the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development through its recently launched Brownfield Area-Wide Revitalization Grant program.
Since 2011, Connecticut has invested $225.6 million in 170 brownfield projects located in 72 municipalities across the state. For every $1.00 of state investment in a brownfield project, $11.41 has been or will be invested by nonstate partners.
