Steel Point news more of the same

1/23/2009

At Steel Point, the city of Bridgeport's longest-running disaster movie, the script has changed.

Again.

Tempting as it would be to write off this latest permutation as a consequence of a crashing economy, such a conclusion would ignore the last generation of city history. Through good times and bad, every boom and bust, Steel Point has remained constant -- an overgrown, uninhabited, decaying symbol of everything the city is and is not.

The latest news involves Manhattan's Midtown Equities, the primary developer since 2005, assuming a minority investment role as RCI Marine, of Miami, again takes over leadership. The plan remains, as ever, to convert the waterfront peninsula into a mixed community of boating slips, retail and housing.

Apparently, the splashy performance delivered by Midtown a few years back that said "The time is now" has been declared inoperative. It's no surprise, but it's no less embarrassing.

The new plan, such as it is, would begin with a full-service marina, adjacent stores and restaurants, and a wraparound boardwalk. Without question, the developer will come up with some beautiful artistic renderings of gleaming buildings and pristine throughways. If the city could make money off the mountain of depictions these past 25 years of projects that never were and never will be, there'd be no worries about any budget deficit.

At one time, the new neighborhood was to be based around thousands of homes, mostly of the luxurious variety. When the economy looked promising, observers worried about a lack of affordable housing, and the possibility of creating an insular, upscale community in the heart of a downtrodden city. In the most recent plan, housing of any kind has been put off indefinitely.

Local leaders say they're optimistic the scaled-down version can work. Though the chances of seeing any development there often seem further away than ever, the slow-and-steady route has found some success elsewhere in the city. Residents can only hope.