Historic Rehabilitation in Fairfield County
By, Kate Lynch - January 15, 2009
NYC is the mothership for a large majority of lower Fairfield County’s population, insofar as employment, shopping and culture. An elitist air permeates our area, filled with those fortunate enough to choose to reside in the shelter of suburbia, yet so close to, arguably, the world’s capital. This contingency is grappling with overpopulation as lower Fairfield County is saturated and the migration to Northern Fairfield County is upon us.
Newtown, CT, for example, while twenty years ago was not noted for much more than its flagpole and quaint Main Street, now boasts a reputation for being the freshest town on the market for the young, married, raising 2.5 children set–who, themselves, grew up in lower Fairfield County and are now priced out.
With the highly educated and well-to-do embracing Southwestern Connecticut’s environs, it is high time to capitalize on this collective brain power and look around. Urban sprawl and poor planning are and have been causing traffic bottlenecks on major through-fares heading north and south, east and west; especially on back country roads once considered “short cuts”. Does it make sense to tear down everything in sight to build strip mall after strip mall on Route 25, for example? So many cars on a simple two lane road with traffic lights ad nauseam makes for a trying, bumper to bumper rush hour commute.
Adaptive reuse is a concept being introduced in Bridgeport! The Park City: once a glorious manufacturing capital whose golden era has long since drowned in political corruption is taking a lead in historic renovation.
The State’s best example of Art Deco architecture is the Citytrust building which has been sitting shyly on the corner of Main and John Streets, in downtown Bridgeport adjacent to the once thriving Arcade Mall and Read's Department Store. This magnificent corner building, lost in the shuffle of gangster turmoil for decades, is finally getting a facelift. In the past five years, the City has sold off numerous foreclosed properties to ambitious developers clamoring to get their hands on historic tax credits and bang-for-the-buck redevelopment. The Citytrust building has been rehabbed into a mixed use project, offering ground floor retail and 118 for-rent residential units. Hooray for the Park City and its vision.
The bottom line is that by taking existing properties and turning them into interesting alternatives to the strip mall, a lovely aesthetic can be maintained, while saving historic structures.
Big box retail is a snore! Look around Manhattan or Los Angeles and it’s easy to understand how and why boutiques thrive–they create an amazing diversity in product that’s never the Gap or Ann Taylor. What is it, then? It’s one off product that allows individuals to foster identities apart from the masses. And this brings us back to the theme of adaptive reuse –individual and eclectic all the while keeping the thread of history alive and the ubiquitous strip mall dead.