Competing plans show real promise

6/21/07
The most recent development news from downtown Bridgeport confirms what people in City Hall have been saying for some time: The city is playing in the big leagues. The competing proposals for the 11-acre site adjacent to Harbor Yard are from well-established, accomplished teams. And they are each, coincidentally, affiliated with retired sports stars — NBA legend Magic Johnson with one and retired NFL quarterback Roger Staubach with the other.
The proposals, of which the city, citing nondisclosure requests from the competitors, has revealed only the barest details, are impressive in scope. Each foresees a mixed use of apartments, movie theaters, shops, a hotel and other destinations. If completed, the development would add an entirely new dimension to downtown.
And the area is full of such promise. The Remington site next to Seaside Park could overhaul the vision of the shoreline. The Citytrust apartments may inspire a new standard of downtown living. And, of course, the long-awaited Steel Point project could change the very face of the city.
Now it’s about making sure these ideas are more than just promising. The site at the center of the sports-star showdown is considered prime development space, but it presents its own problems. For one, that space is currently used for parking overrun for events at the Arena and Ballpark at Harbor Yard. More parking levels are slated at the facility’s garage, but the city would be well-served to have good plans in place for out-of-towners to deposit their cars someplace safe.
The site is also, like the Remington location, not far from the noisy, unsightly power plants on a nearby tract. The negative impact of that facility can’t be allowed to hold back the potential for growth in the area.
The real potential in the Harbor Yard site lies in the possibility of healing the open wound that sears the city in half — the elevated Interstate 95 expressway. Separating one segment of the city from the other, the highway isn’t going anywhere (no Big Dig for us, thank you). But if this location, directly south of the highway and right off an exit ramp, can lure people into those dank underpasses from downtown and help reconnect the severed streetscape, it will be a real accomplishment.
The city needs to make a real effort to make those underpasses more inviting, and make foot traffic through the area an everyday activity. Good transit-based development counts on pedestrians, and the city can go a long way toward that goal if this development is done right.