When a Fortunate 500 corporation leaves a city, what happens to who is left behind? What happens to the local restaurant owners? The real estate market? The club sports teams? The charities? In this post, I want to explore a similar case study involving GE departing the Connecticut town of Fairfield. Dino Sakakini, owner of a restaurant called Layla’s Falafel, was quite pessimistic about UBS’ impending move back to Manhattan.…
After finding my way out of the chaotic construction site that is Stamford Station, I had but to cross a few streets to encounter the luxury complexes of Stamford South End, including Harbor Point: “the perfect place to LIVE, WORK, and PLAY”. Gritty-chic is the name of the game, as abandoned brick factories abut reconstructed brick “factories” abut slick steel abut modern glass. It’s hard to separate the merely dilapidated…
In contrast to the developer-inspired growth strategy taking place in the South End of Stamford, the City of Stamford has very carefully planned the 31-acre Mill River Park, over more than 21 years, at a cost of $100 million. The park is currently being developed in phases, in the heart of downtown Stamford, with aspirations of creating a central park for the city with a three-mile greenway along Mill River,…
After posting about how Metro North contributed to Stamford’s development, I wanted to experience Stamford’s transit-oriented development for myself, so I hopped on a train from NHV to STM. The experience was not entirely seamless. I walked 30 minutes from campus to Union Station, to find I just missed one train and must wait almost 45 minutes for the next. Aside from the lack of frequency, Metro North is quite comfortable. The…
Perhaps because of its proximity to New York and the coast in general, Stamford boasts an unusual diversity of citizens from different backgrounds, races, and places. Stamford has a population around 127,000 making it the 219th largest city in the United States. Source: https://www.towncharts.com/Connecticut/Demographics/Stamford-city-CT-Demographics-data.html By and large the city is a young one. The median age is 36 which is about 10% lower than the state average. The education level…
Located along the rail line to New York, Stamford is a popular bedroom community for people looking to live outside but adjacent to the Big Apple. One of the nice things about Stamford is that it is nautical, which means that parts of it are somewhat historic and touch the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and bays. Because of this, visitors and locals will often go…
Another way of viewing the corporate flight of Fortune 500 companies in Stamford may be the volatile nature of the financial services industry. Perhaps Stamford was simply unfortunate to have housed the American headquarters of two European banks, which are facing unique financial challenges as the entire continent of Europe struggles to cope with several debt crises. RBS, or the Royal Bank of Scotland, which is now controlled by the…
Stamford’s development is inextricably linked to the New York MTA’s Metro North Commuter Rail, upon which one can travel from Grand Central Station to Downtown Stamford in about an hour. All the MTA lines serve some economic activity, as shown below in a job density map produced by the New York City Planning Department. Stamford, Bridgeport, and New Haven have the highest job density. According to Amtrak’s Great American Stations…
This blog is the product of student research for the Cases in Commercial Real Estate: Design, Development and Innovation course at the Yale School of Management, Fall 2018. Five of us chose to research and write about Stamford, Connecticut, which is in the midst of a $6 billion building boom, for the opportunity to study an active real estate development project happening close to New Haven. This explosive growth in…
In 1994, UBS set off municipal warfare when it announced its decisions to move from its two Manhattan locations, one in Midtown and the other in the Financial District, to the comparatively quieter suburb of Stamford. Some experts speculated that financial firms no longer needed to be headquartered in the outrageously expensive and cramped locations in Manhattan, due to growth of computerized trading and telecommunications platforms such as Skype and…
Tracing the path of development in Stamford, Connecticut, is no easy task. The South End of Stamford is in the midst of an explosive period of growth. A former industrial and working class neighborhood that suffered with the decline and closure of local businesses, the area has experienced an influx of rental apartment towers and businesses that support the wealthier renters who have moved in. Though the transition has not…
