After a string of bold proposals have fallen through over the years, Bridgeport’s city council is preparing to vote on a plan that could mark the city’s biggest redevelopment in decades.
A $1.5 billion redevelopment of the city-owned Steel Point peninsula is up for a vote before the city council Monday night.
The proposal promises upscale condominiums and townhouses facing Bridgeport Harbor along with stores, restaurants, perhaps hotel and office space. Plans also call for a waterfront esplanade, 350-slip marina and a yacht club.
Backers say the project could eventually generate $30 million a year in taxes and bring thousands of jobs.
However, opponents say plans for Steel Point would make it another just another closed community for the wealthy, doing little for the residents who need affordable housing.
Labor organizers claim that under the agreement between the city and developer, the project would create only dead-end, minimum-wage jobs.
The council is voting on an agreement to sell the city-owned property to developer Midtown Equities LLC of New York.
The agreement outlines commitments for setting aside housing units for buyers of modest means, guarantees of tax revenues that would be paid, and penalties if Midtown didn’t live up to its end of the bargain.
Although Midtown Equities and its investors are assuming most of the cost of the project, the public does have some leverage. The developer would sell $190 million in bonds to pay for road, sewer and other infrastructure improvements that would be repaid in the future through local taxes.
And the state has already invested $35.6 million for land acquisition, demolition and environmental studies.
The union is demanding that the workers at Steel Point’s various independent venues be paid “prevailing wages,” which are well above Connecticut’s minimum wage of $7.65 an hour.
