MARCH 4, 2019 VOL. 55, No. 9
westfaironline.com
1011 Washington Blvd. in Stamford. Photo by Luis Flores.
INSIDE PAGE
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LISTINGS CLIMB
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SCHOOL FUNDING
Making the occupancy rate pop
Connecticut Infrastructure Bank proposed amid Lamont’s toll plan
BY KEVIN ZIMMERMAN
BY KEVIN ZIMMERMAN
kzimmerman@westfairinc.com
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op-up shops have become fairly common over the past few years. But the developer behind one of Stamford’s new luxury high-rises is using the concept in a novel way: not just to further underscore the “community” theme it’s striven to construct among its residents, but to get its occupancy rate to pop as well. “Trying to attract new
residents is a part of it,” affirmed Abby Goldenfarb, one of the vice presidents of development at Trinity Financial, which opened the 19-floor, $80 million Vela on the Park building at 1011 Washington Blvd. last year. “We’re about 85 percent occupied and it hasn’t even been a year. But we think these kinds of events can help.” The types of events Goldenfarb was referencing include a Feb. 19 pop-up trunk show fea-
turing high-end knitwear company Sh*t That I Knit. Like Trinity, STIK is based in Boston, but founder Christina Fagan said she jumped at the chance to expose her wares to a new community. “I’ve done pop-ups in the past,” Fagan, who started the online company in 2015, said. Noting that her inventory can be found in various stores in the Boston and Portland, Maine, areas, she said that she’s now “trying to expand and get better known in Fairfield County. Places like Stamford, Greenwich and Darien are definitely top spots for us.” The Vela event ran from just 7 to 9 p.m. — pop-up » POP
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kzimmerman@westfairinc.com AS DEBATE CONTINUES TO SWIRL OVER THE POSSIBILITY OF TOLLS RETURNING TO CONNECTICUT, State Sen. Alex Bergstein is busy gathering support for a bill that would create a Connecticut Infrastructure Bank to fund public/private improvements to the state’s transportation infrastructure. The bank proposed by SB 70, which the Greenwichbased senator introduced in January, would “finance a loan program with funds appropriated from the Special Transportation Fund (STF) or other sources of revenue designated for infrastructure improvements, including potential
future streams of revenue from electronic tolls, and leveraged with private debt capital through the issuance of bonds or other financing arrangements for eligible infrastructure projects, including, but not limited to, the building, renovation and repair of highways, bridges, railroads, waterways, ports and airports.” The mere mention of tolls has set off alarm bells among some legislators — especially in light of Gov. Ned Lamont’s Feb. 16 announcement that, instead of tolling only tractor-trailers as he originally outlined during his gubernatorial campaign, “the truck-only option provides too lit» TOLL PLAN
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