Fairfield Metro Center Totally Explained

Everything about Fairfield Metro Center totally explained

Fairfield Metro Center is a massive commercial building complex and possible train station and along Metro-North Railroad's New Haven Line in eastern Fairfield, Connecticut. The project has been heavily subsidized by state, federal and local taxpayer funding. If construction ever commences and the project is completed, it'll be the largest commercial development in town along with a railroad station located between Fairfield station and Bridgeport station. Many expect that this station would become the new express pick-up from Fairfield heading toward Stamford and Grand Central therby displacing that longstanding status of the Downtown Fairfield station. The complex will be accessible by the very dangerous exit 24 of I-95, Kings Highway and several poorly designed existing two lane roads. The project has been designated as a "major traffic generator" by the CT State Traffic Commission eventhough ironically the proponents of the project have represented that it would make traffic conditions better. As a special accommodation to the Metro Center owners, the town created a special high density / high volume zoning district just for this project. The special district allows the planned buildings to tower higher than anything built to date in either the entire town of Fairfield or the neighboring Bridgeport section of Black Rock. The landsacpe of the area will be changed forever including as it'll be viewed from the adjacent Long Island Sound.
Part of the plan had included building four office buildings and a Hilton Hotel next to the station but Hilton has reportedly dropped out with ensuing discussions about revising the plans to include high rise residential units that are now in demand from the market. The street address of the site is 21 Black Rock Turnpike. The government owned station will have 1,500 parking spaces built on top of material stockpiled as part of the remediation of the former brownfield site. Groundwater monitoring facilities will be in place for thirty years to assure no further remediation will be required. The commercial/residential complex will have its own parking garages as well.
Actual construction of the train station and associated commercial space has yet to begin. Site clearing did begin under questionable circumstances in spring 2007and continues today. (External Link

) The station is expected to open in late 2009 or early 2010 but numerous projections for completion have been wrong in the past. (External Link

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) The project has been exteremely controversial for a number of reasons including the fact that it was originated by ConnDOT during the administration of the disgraced former Governor John G. Rowland (External Link

)who was sentenced to federal prison for corruption. The contract for the project was negotiated by Rowland's Public Transportation Bureau Chief, Harry Harris, who was summarily dismissed by Jodi Rell amid allegations that his government business practices seemed to intersect with his personal interests.(External Link

) And more recently in early 2008, numerous local citizens are questioning the project because the well established environmental regulatory processes have been short circuited without question by anyone other than concerned citizens. (External Link

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)Other concerns with the project go to the negative impact on the adjacent neighborhoods of Grasmere in Fairfield and Black Rock in Bridgeport. While property values have been rising in anticipation of the coming train station nobody is dealing with the problem of increased traffic and traffic congestion that will acompany the commercial development. The politicians are dismissing the problem while the residents just hope the problems will somehow magically get solved.(External Link

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