🔒Up on Downtowns: Developer John Guedes sees promise in urban transformation

First there was the beautifully groomed border collie. Then a couple of lapdogs on leashes nosing the greenery. But the bulldog in a baby stroller made it official: Downtown Shelton is now a hip residential neighborhood.

One man can take much of the credit for launching the transformation of a once-desolate industrial area: Bridgeport-based developer John Guedes.

“I’m very proud,” Guedes said, surveying the swath of downtown Shelton that is gradually transforming. “It wasn't just for money. I took old dilapidated industrial buildings and brought life to them, and people are happy to live there. I created an environment.”

When complete, the Shelton riverfront development that Guedes pioneered along Canal Street will house 650 residential units, 58,000 square feet of commercial space and 1,374 parking spaces. The construction sprawls over eight separate properties, most former industrial sites that needed extensive cleanup.

Another part of the riverfront challenge: filling in defunct industrial canals and raising parts of the project 10 feet to mitigate flooding concerns.

City leaders credit Guedes and his Primrose Companies with sparking a downtown revitalization, resulting in more than $144 million in investment in 15 projects across a once-blighted section of Shelton along the Housatonic River.

In part due to Guedes' developments, Shelton's population rose 3.3% in the most recent census, bucking decades-long declines in many Naugatuck Valley communities.

“Twenty years ago, I couldn't get anybody interested in downtown Shelton,” said Mark Lauretti, mayor of the city since 1991. “We were blighted. We had homelessness. We had contamination. We had empty storefronts. And no one wants to be the first one.”

Guedes impressed city leaders with his track record on earlier revitalization in Bridgeport projects and his enthusiasm, Lauretti said. The city also resolved to help the developer make things happen by pruning back the red tape that had stymied earlier redevelopment efforts, he said.

“There's got to be vision, people have to have a vision,” Lauretti said, offering advice to other municipalities looking for a downtown transformation similar to Shelton’s. “The local planning and zoning commissions need to take a step back and let entrepreneurs make their investments and build the kinds of things that the marketplace is looking for. It doesn't always happen.”

Blight to bright

Guedes’ first phase of the Shelton project was the conversion of a former corset factory into the Birmingham on the River condominiums. He showed a visitor with pride the original ductwork and pine flooring he incorporated into the complex, advertised on Redfin as “New York Loft-Style Posh Units in sought-after Birmingham complex.”

When Guedes first visited the building and area about 15 years ago, he was greeted by what he calls “an apocalyptic scene.” Downtown Shelton was pockmarked with abandoned factory complexes that drew criminal activity and were in various states of disrepair.

“When I started I couldn't convince anybody this was worth investing in,” Guedes said. “Nobody was interested.”

Guedes came to Shelton with decades of experience revitalizing buildings in Bridgeport, the city he grew up in after emigrating from Portugal at the age of 10, in 1962. An architect by training, he started his own firm in 1978, Primrose Companies, with a focus on adaptive reuse of neglected urban buildings and abandoned factories.

“I love the fact that when somebody abandons it, the re-creation of it is a challenge,” Guedes said of industrial sites.

With its proximity to Fairfield County’s commercial corridor and low tax rate (17.47 mills), Shelton had great potential as an affordable alternative to Stamford and Norwalk, Guedes said. And the corporate corridor crafted by Robert Scinto less than five miles away added to downtown’s appeal for residential development.

The next step was purchasing the properties along Canal Street, then cleaning them up.

“The problem with these old industrial sites is that it takes a lot of money to make them happen,” Guedes said. With about $20 million in state funding from brownfields cleanup and infrastructure programs, the Birmingham lot was ready for its transformation. The first tenants moved in 2006.

The derelict asphalt plant next to the Birmingham came next — beyond repair, the building was demolished and sold to Avalon Bay, which built the 250-unit Radcliffe Park complex. Then the Spongex Foam Products building at 6 Bridge St. was converted into the Canal Street Lofts, with 47 units.

Most recently, Guedes built the Riverside Retail Center on the site of the former Rolfite factory, featuring a stylish new restaurant and several retail spaces — including a dog grooming business, What the Pup.

In the pipeline are a 64-unit complex now under construction at 223 Canal St. and a 92-unit complex at 113-123 Canal St., in the planning stages. Also beckoning are several acres of underutilized land at the far end of Canal Street, just before the canal’s former locks, where Guedes envisions a 64-unit condo tower and 90-apartment loft complex.

Rents at the completed apartment complexes along Canal range up from $1,800 a month — a far cry from the $900 estimate on rents Guedes first got from an appraiser early in the process.

Ion Bank has financed several of Guedes’ projects over the past eight years, won over by his vision, said Allan Monteiro, senior vice president and commercial banking officer at Ion.

“All projects have been successful due to Mr. Guedes’ vast experience as an architect, developer, and businessman,” Monteiro said. “It is incredible to see his design plans for redeveloping older mill-style buildings along the Housatonic river.”

Market knowledge

Guedes is now looking beyond Shelton to development projects in Ansonia and Hartford — and back to his hometown of Bridgeport.

In Ansonia, Guedes has proposed a complex that includes a regulation-sized outdoor soccer stadium, 39,000-square-foot indoor soccer facility and 49,000-square-foot multi-sports space on Olson Drive along the Naugatuck River. He has other Ansonia projects in the works, Guedes said.

In Bridgeport, Guedes’ company is converting the former Holiday Inn hotel at 1070 Main St. into 100 one- and two-bedroom luxury apartments. In Hartford, Guedes has teamed up with Biagio Barone of Stratford-based Barone Properties on an $18.7 million conversion of the former Travelers training center at 200 Constitution Plaza into 101 apartments.

In his capacity as both a developer and designer, Guedes is involved in multiple projects across the state, many with partners. One of those partners is Abraham Gottesman of Blue Garden Management, a New York firm with local offices in Waterbury. Gottesman has partnered with Guedes on several projects in downtown Bridgeport to convert office buildings into apartments.

“He's very experienced and he knows this stuff very well, specifically engineering and drawing. He understands the market very, very, very, very well,” Gottesman said. “When we started working together, I knew I had the right person for the job.”

In downtown Shelton, Guedes’ nearly two decades of efforts have resulted in a new issue — lack of parking caused by the growing population and retail activity.

“Well, if all people can do now is complain about parking, I think that's probably a pretty good thing,” said Lauretti, the mayor. “Because that means you have a product that people want — there’s life, there's vibrancy, there’s people walking around, there’s people that are frequenting different establishments.”

Speaking of Guedes, Lauretti said, “He started something that just gained a lot of momentum and has tremendous momentum now.”