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Decades ago, there was a steel mill on this 50-acre property. After that a power plant was built; then that was demolished too. About 100 families lived here; they were torn down in the 1990s to make way for a redevelopment that never happened. Now all you can see is an empty stretch of grass with a prominent sign that reads Steelpointe Harbor. That’s Steelpointe with an ‘e’ at the end.
Bridgeport residents have been hearing about the potential for this peninsula since 1983. Lydia Martinez is councilwoman for Bridgeport’s 37th district, where the area lies.
“If you asked me three years ago, I was kind of disappointed, waiting for something to happen," Martinez says. "Nothing was moving. Noting was moving. Then we started questioning, and I started questioning it."
Now, nearly 30 years after city officials in Bridgeport started talking about developing a little peninsula on the water next to I-95, an actual tenant has finally committed to moving in. And after court cases, corruption scandals and an economic meltdown, the project has finally started moving forward again. The city partnered with a Miami-based developer and divided the project into smaller phases.
When finished, Steelpointe is expected to include 1500 housing units, a 200-slip marina, restaurants, and retail. For now, the outdoor goods store Bass Pro Shops will be moving into its Northeast corner and open as early as next year. It should bring hunting, boating, camping, and fishing enthusiasts to the city. But for Bridgeport’s new economic development director David Kooris, it means much more than that.
"This is an opportunity…to not just do good things, but to show them off and inspire others to do good things as well," Kooris says.
Bridgeport officials think Steelpointe represents a new way of thinking about cities in Connecticut. After all, this is the first urban location for a Bass Pro Shops. The idea, says Kooris, is to reorient Bridgeport toward its waterfront – neglected for so many years.
“It’s really indicative of the new way of thinking, where the river goes from being the back door where you dump things and you load stuff onto the boat, but the river becomes the centerpiece of a new neighborhood," Kooris says.
And a green neighborhood, as part of a city-wide initiative. Steelpointe will retain all of its stormwater on site, and will include new and creative uses of alternative and renewable energy sources. And a 24-hour-accessible walkway will wind all the way around the peninsula.
“You’ve got to get them to the water, you’ve got to get them to see the fish in the water and know their food comes from there," said Bill Finch, Bridgeport's mayor. "And then a lot of the public policy comes a lot easier because people see the benefits of being closer to nature and appreciating it and valuing it.”
But that vision of sustainability is up against a lot of challenges. Steelpointe juts up right against I-95, cutting it off from its adjacent neighborhoods in downtown and the East End.
“The interstate highway system and various other factors have completely changed the landscape of America," says Eric Lehman, a professor at the University of Bridgeport.
Steelpointe is just a half a mile from Bridgeport’s train station, but a walk on Stratford Avenue takes you underneath a noisy highway overpass. The University of Bridgeport is in a similar situation.
“We’re cut off from the downtown by the 95 and the metro-north corridor there," Lehman says. "So even though the univresity’s booming and the students are taking over a lot of the South End, we’re still separated from the revitalization downtown.”
Developers say they’ll widen the streets that go underneath the highway and into Steelpointe, and make them more walkable. The real challenge will be the state of the economy, which will determine whether other tenants want to come in to bring housing, restaurants, and retail to Steelpointe once Bass Pro Shops is up and running.
But Lehman thinks businesses will definitely follow because Bridgeport is undergoing a renewal. Once a bustling factory town which churned out weapons during World War II, the city has seen decades of factory closings and rising unemployment. Now, a new generation has been born.
“You’re going to get a new generation of people who don’t have that idea and don’t have the disillusionment," he says.
"They didn’t live through the late 20th century in Bridgeport, which must have been very depressing to see those things disappear one by one."
City officials say Steelpointe is just the beginning, a way of jumpstarting development all along a 750-acre stretch of Brownfields sites known as Bridgeport’s East Side Corridor. Some of the factory buildings on those sites are still being torn down, and it will be years before any redevelopment takes place there.
For more on this story, visit the Connecticut Mirror at ctmirror.org.
