After finances were derailed on a key mixed-use development in Fairfield, TD Bank agreed to restructure a loan with lead developer Blackrock Realty L.L.C. that frees up more than $5 million for infrastructure work needed to complete a rail station at the site by next summer.
The station sits adjacent to Blackrock Realty”™s proposed Fairfield Metro Center site that is approved for as much as 1.1 million square feet of space and a 180-room hotel.
At the height of the last business cycle, the project was trumpeted as one of the most significant mixed-use developments in Fairfield County outside Stamford. That list includes two other projects that similarly stalled in the recession ”“ District 95/7 in Norwalk and the newly renamed Georgetown Green development in Redding ”“ but because the Fairfield Metro Center project included a new rail station in a densely populated area, it received special attention from the state.
“We have finally come together ”¦ in trying to get this project moving forward,” said Gov. M. Jodi Rell, speaking in Fairfield late last month. “(The agreement) will be the catalyst to get this project moving.”
Still unknown is the nature of any ultimatum that was delivered: Blackrock Realty Principal Kurt Wittek said he was summoned from his California home to Hartford on less than a day”™s notice as state officials attempted get the project back on track.
“We knew ”¦ either this was it, or ”˜this was it,”™” Wittek said.
Under the new agreement, Blackrock Realty is turning over a nearly 3-acre parcel of land to the state, which will receive revenues from a 1,200-space parking lot to be built at the site. On its own dime, the state is midway through the construction of the rail station itself, but without an agreement on the parking lot the project faced a huge hurdle.
In January, the state Bond Commission approved $19.4 million to finance the acquisition of Westport-based Blackrock Realty”™s property at the site, construction of an access road and installation of a drainage system. The town of Fairfield also has committed $5 million for the project.
“The only thing that remains to be done is to make this a beautiful, revitalized site,” said Ken Flatto, first selectman of Fairfield. “All the pieces are in place.”
The as-yet-to-be-named station will include a bridge for vehicular traffic and a “flyover” pedestrian walkway to provide pedestrian access to north- and south-bound platforms, both of which are under construction.
“We have made the best of a situation that would have prevented us from completing the station as originally envisioned,” said Joseph Marie, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Transportation. “Now everyone can move forward on a station that all of us can be proud of.”
With the public transportation component of the project complete, it remains to be seen how active Blackrock Realty will be in courting commercial tenants that would enable the company to secure needed financing to begin construction of office buildings. At the time of the financing agreement, a website the company maintained for Fairfield Metro Center was no longer active.
Wittek said progress on the commercial component of the project would take a commitment from an “anchor” tenant for at least 80,000 square feet of space.
“The last year and a half, we”™ve been on hold,” Wittek said. “I think after today, we are back in the game.”
