🔒Developer envisions art-friendly, ‘vibrant downtown’ in plan to revitalize a key CT city center

Developer Jason Milligan envisions people admiring local artwork as they walk to shops, restaurants and entertainment venues within the city of Norwalk’s reemerging Wall Street area. He also sees them ambling around a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood that’s home to thriving businesses and residents who are proud of their tight-knit community. To achieve that vision, Milligan, an owner of about 40 retail and office properties in the area and a staunch supporter of the city’s $27 million Wall Street Corridor Improvements Project, plans to invest more than $120 million in two new developments in the neighborhood.

Last September, his real estate company — Milligan Realty, headquartered at 48 Wall St. — received city approval to build a six-story, 210-room extended-stay hotel at 21-23 Isaacs St. In early February, the firm also got the go-ahead to construct a 102-unit apartment building and 96-room hotel on the site of a five-story office building, at 24 Belden Ave. Plans call for renovating the office property and bookending it with the apartment building and hotel. It will have 45,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space. Milligan said both projects will take about 18 months from start to finish. The Belden Avenue development should start in two or three months, and the Isaacs Street hotel may begin construction this year. Milligan said he will announce a major brand for both hotels soon. “We want to have a vibrant downtown where the shops are full and the more people on the street, the better,” Milligan recently told the Hartford Business Journal. “What we’re trying to build here is a community that is fun.”

Arts and culture district

The Wall Street corridor is a key downtown commercial artery in Norwalk that includes Wall, River, Main, Isaacs and Commerce streets; West, Mott and Belden avenues; and Burnell Boulevard. The city has focused on redeveloping the area, which suffered significant damage from the historic Flood of 1955. The city’s pedestrian-friendly plan includes widening sidewalks, creating public event spaces and adding landscaping and green space. It also aims to improve street lighting, form seating and gathering areas and preserve historic buildings. There is a particular focus on the arts. The roughly 93-acre neighborhood is home to the Norwalk Conservatory of the Arts, a two-year theater college, and the District Musical Hall, a 2,000-person music venue. “The Wall Street area is a little village, or a little niche area, where it’s artistic and creative, and it’s focused on arts and culture,” Milligan said.

The developer’s experience in the area hasn’t been without its challenges. Dominating the neighborhood’s low skyline is a six-story, two-building affordable housing development — known as Wall Street Place — that has faced years of delays, partly due to a legal tussle between Milligan and the city. New York-based developer POKO Partners started building Wall Street Place in 2007, but then stopped construction when the Great Recession hit in 2008. Milligan and Wall Street Recap Associates bought the property in 2018 to complete the 155-unit project. However, Milligan ended up in a five-year legal battle with the city, which filed a lawsuit arguing the developer had illegitimately purchased the development site by violating a land disposition agreement. Construction didn’t resume until 2023, when Stamford-based JHM Financial Group bought the property. The project is expected to be completed by early 2026. Milligan, who lives in and grew up in New Canaan, said he is happy to see the Wall Street Place project move forward to completion, even though he’s no longer involved in the project. “I have zero complaints about any of this,” he said.

‘Working together’

Meantime, the city officially launched the Wall Street Corridor Improvements Project in 2022, in an effort to make the area safer and more accessible to pedestrians. The project is the brainchild of Jim Travers, the city’s director of mobility, transportation and parking, and Garrett Bolella, his assistant. They both came to Norwalk in February 2021 from Stamford, where Travers was Stamford’s bureau chief for transportation, traffic and parking, and Bolella was a traffic engineer. “We really saw the incredible potential that exists on the street and, at that point in time, we had a lot of empty storefronts,” Travers said. “We really thought the infrastructure here is great, but the roadway is horrible.” So far, the $27 million project has received $14 million in state funding and $5.75 million in federal grants, Travers said. It has also received $2 million from the city’s parking authority to improve the Yankee Doodle parking garage on Burnell Boulevard. The project, which is expected to be finished by 2030, includes building a raised intersection at Mott Avenue and Burnell Boulevard during a first phase of construction, and a raised crosswalk at the intersection of Wall Street, Mott and West avenues and Burnell Boulevard during a second phase, Travers said. Burnell Boulevard will also return to a two-way street. Travers said the city, with Milligan’s help, is trying to return the Wall Street area to its former glory as the city’s downtown district, an identity that has been lost since the neighborhood sustained heavy damage during the 1955 flood. “What we’re doing is trying to create long-lasting, sustainable infrastructure investments that will support the continued economic growth, and one that is going to meet the needs of future generations,” Travers said. “I think really, what you’re seeing here is an environment where everyone is working together.”