Fairfield County Business Journal 010620

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PRINT JOURNALISM: BECAUSE IT STILL MATTERS. JANUARY 6, 2020 VOL. 56, No. 1

westfaironline.com

The reception area at BluePoint Wellness’ new location at 1460 Post Road East in Westport.

Pot profits

INSIDE

COUNTY’S SECOND MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARY OPENS IN WESTPORT

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CYBER REALITY IS UNFORGIVING

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FREE TUITION

STAMFORD STILL SETTING THE PACE FOR FAIRFIELD COUNTY OFFICE MARKET

BY KEVIN ZIMMERMAN kzimmerman@westfairinc.com

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ec. 23 is hardly the optimal date to open a new business. But for Nick Tamborrino, co-founder of medical marijuana dispensary BluePoint Wellness, the fact that his operation at 1460 Post Road East in Westport had finally cleared all the hurdles

meant the time was as good as any. “We opened on that Monday and then there was the holiday,” Tamborrino explained. “We’re getting patients registered one at a time, but so far we’ve been getting great feedback.” The 4,100-square-foot facility occupies the former site of Coco Spa and is only the second such operation in Fairfield County, joining

Compassionate Care Center of Connecticut in Bethel, which opened in 2014. Westport’s Planning & Zoning Commission passed limited regulations in 2017 allowing up to two medical marijuana dispensaries in the town, after imposing a 2013 moratorium on accepting applications or approving permits for such facilities. Dispensaries in the town are required to be more than 1,000 feet from schools, day-care facilities, parks, public buildings and houses of worship. BluePoint’s application was accepted in June 2018, with the town’s P&Z denying four other medical marijuana dispensary applica» WESTPORT

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BY KEVIN ZIMMERMAN kzimmerman@westfairinc.com

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tamford led Fairfield County’s leasing activity in 2019, with its Central Business District (CBD) accounting for 36%, or nearly 1.2 million square feet, of the county’s volume of 3.2 million square feet. According to Newmark Knight Frank’s (NKF) fourth-quarter office market report, availability countywide remained stable from 2018 at 26.6%, while net absorption ended the year flat at 8,931 square feet. “Stamford definitely hit a high point in 2019,” said NKF Research Manager Karolina Alexandre, “and

we expect that activity to continue, not only in downtown but south of I-95 as well.” While another deal as large as WWE’s — which announced in March that it was leaving its 1241 E. Main St. headquarters in Stamford and signing a 16½-year lease for the 415,000-square-foot, three-building complex at 677 Washington Blvd. — is unlikely for 2020, NKF Executive Vice President, Managing Director James Ritman said all the activity in the city bodes well for the county at large. “There are a lot of good things happening in Stamford,” he said, noting that its CBD on average » STAMFORD

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