Stamford Approves Another Norwalk Developer
Oh look, the Stamford Advocate is reporting yet another Norwalk based developer has plans to build housing in downtown Stamford:
Since the summer, Greenfield Partners, a real estate investment company based in Norwalk, has been working to gain a series of city approvals for a plan that entails 350 rental apartments and nearly 11,000 square feet of ground floor live/work space at 75 Tresser Blvd., the former home of The Advocate.
Members of the URC voted unanimously Thursday to recommend the plan to the Zoning Board after hearing favorable comments from Kip Bergstrom, the URC’s executive director, and Daniel Doern, an architectural consultant hired by the commission.
“This is an exciting building that will get talked about,” Doern said.
The URC has authority over the designs of projects proposed for the Mill River Corridor, an area roughly bounded by Interstate-95, Mill River Street, Washington Boulevard and the University of Connecticutparking garage.
One question concerning the project was whether it met the commission’s design criteria, which encourages high-rises along Washington Boulevard. The regulations call for maximum building heights of 125 feet. But tall structures require a more expensive steel-frame construction that have all but vanished in Stamford since the recession. Developers have instead turned their focus to wood-frame or “stick-built” buildings that typically top out at five stories.
As a result, the plan by Greenfield Partners calls for a roughly five-story building with facades and heights that vary as it wraps around the more residential sections of Tresser Boulevard and Clinton Avenue. Knowing that the city wanted an iconic building on one of its most high-profile corners, the developer proposed incorporating an 86-foot vertical light beacon that would slice through the building on Washington Boulevard.
