CTDOT and Office of Policy and Management End Bid for Transit-Oriented Development

Connecticut Department of Transportation Commissioner James Redeker and Office of Policy and Management (OPM) Secretary Ben Barnes recently announced the state is discontinuing negotiations with Stamford Manhattan Development Ventures (SMDV) for a Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) project at the Stamford Transportation Center. After three years of negotiations, CTDOT and OPM concluded that it would not be in the best interest of the state to proceed any further with negotiations in this matter.  

CTDOT is now initiating the design of a new 1,000-space garage that it will build on South State Street. The new facility, expected to open in 2021, will have walkways connecting to all platforms at the station. The current estimate to construct the new garage and demolish the existing garage is $53 million. The site of the old garage will remain under CTDOT ownership. The existing garage will remain open until the new garage is completed.

Commissioner Redeker indicated that the Department and SMDV have worked continuously and have gone to great lengths to develop creative solutions to the issues that this innovative project posed. “There were compelling benefits from the proposed TOD that would benefit commuters, the city and the taxpayers of the state that were clearly worth the effort to try to reach a positive result. In the end, we decided it was in the best interest of the state to terminate the process.”

“I continue to believe that high-intensity Transit-Oriented Development is the right use of that property, and I commend DOT and SMDV for their unflagging effort to bring this agreement to conclusion,” said Barnes.  “Unfortunately, the negotiations failed to yield an agreement that benefits the residents of our state to the greatest extent possible. I look forward to DOT completing a replacement parking structure and thereafter redeveloping the Station Place property in a way that strengthens the transit system, the City of Stamford, and the State of Connecticut.”