For one dollar, a development group with a brownfields specialty has purchased the ultimate fixer-upper — a 33-acre parcel on the Bridgeport waterfront that comes with responsibility to demolish a power plant and its iconic red-and-white smoke stack, remediate the site and redevelop it.
Bridgeport Station DeveloperLLC was introduced Tuesday by the administration of Gov. Ned Lamont as the new owner of Bridgeport Harbor Station Unit 3, which was the last of Connecticut’s coal-fired generators of electricity when PSEG closed it in 2021.
“Work will begin this week, and while a lot of the activity will be on the interior to start and so not always visible, you will indeed start to see a skyline changing over the coming months with ongoing demolition,” said Chad Parks, one of the partners in the development group.
The Community Investment Fund, a competitive grant program overseen by lawmakers and the Department of Economic and Community Development, already has committed $22.5 million for the demolition of the plant, essentially making the state a broker in the deal.
“The state grant award brought PSEG to the table and helped to catalyze conversations about what the future of this site could be, and we’re here today to announce the sale of this site by PSEG and the transfer of ownership to Bridgeport Station Development,” said Matt Pugliese, deputy commissioner of DECD.
“I can say definitively that without the Community Investment Funding from the state, this property would have sat, possibly, dormant for many years instead of us all being here today,” Parks said.
While the grant offsets the costs of demolition, the $1 purchase price indicates that PSEG is selling the liability for any required environmental remediation along with the potential for waterfront development.
Parks and his partners are players in the ultimate niche real estate business: Taking a chance on brownfields, most recently another coal-fired power plant in Cape May, N.J. The old power plants, which required water for cooling and the delivery of coal, come with huge potential and significant risk.
“It’s a liability transfer business,” Parks said.
The state’s financial commitment is limited to the demolition grant. Bridgeport Station Development is responsible for any other costs, as well as redeveloping the land under conditions outlined by the state.
Industrial reuse is off limits. The state wants to see mixed use, preferably with a substantial housing component, all of which would be subject to local approvals and the engagement of a South End neighborhood eager to emerge from the long shadow of its industrial past.
“This is not going to be something where folks prescribe what’s going to happen in your neighborhood,” said Rep. Antonio Fellipe, D-Bridgeport. “There’s going to be collaboration. Folks are going to talk to the community, and we’re going to put something here that makes it a better place to live and make sure that you can have something that you want in your south end.”
Other officials and the developer made the same promise.
Asthma rates in the area historically have been among the highest in the U.S., as is the case with neighborhoods in Hartford and New Haven, a combination of industrial pollutants and heavy motor vehicle traffic. Those two cities also have defunct power plants awaiting remediation and redevelopment.
Felipe, who grew up in the South End and now represents it in the legislature, described the neighborhood as literally on the other side of the tracks.
“We can talk a lot about the air quality and the asthma that some of our family members may have had stemming from the coal plant, but also just the amount of TLC that was lacking in the area,” he said. “When you passed Park Avenue in the underpass, when you passed the train tracks, it felt different.”
DECD Commissioner Dan O’Keefe described the vibe of the abandoned coal plant as a “dystopian hellscape.”
The area will retain a newer natural-gas fired power plant also owned and operated by PSEG. It opened in 2018, clearing the way for the closure of the dirtier coal-fired plant that had been used intermittently in its last years, providing 400 megawatts of power at times of peak demand.
It was needed for just two days in 2020 and none in 2019, but the station ran for the first two months of 2021 during a prolonged period of extreme cold.
PSEG was the last of its owners and operators. United Illuminating opened the plant in 1957 to provide power needed by industry in southwestern Connecticut. It was designed to burn oil or coal, but was converted to coal-only in 2002.
Lamont, who has described himself as bullish on the potential of the Bridgeport waterfront, and a one-time political rival, Mayor Joseph P. Ganim, joined in the announcement of a sale that is a first and key step in turning the site into a mixed-use project that will restore public access to the waterfront.
“You don’t allow me to invest anymore,” said Lamont, a businessman married to a venture capitalist. “But if I could, I’d be investing in Bridgeport, because I just see an amazing future here.”
The demolition will take three years and include the implosion of the smoke stack and three boilers. Parks said, “It’ll be a visible celebration of new beginnings.”
