Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont has committed $8 million in state funds to remediate and redevelop two properties that will encompass a proposed minor league soccer stadium in Bridgeport, the state’s largest city.
The funds are part of a $26.3 million grant program that will finance property remediation in 17 Connecticut localities. With the Bridgeport properties, $4 million will be used in the demolition and remediation of a former 16.13-acre greyhound racetrack site that will be used for the proposed stadium; part of the funds will also be used in a redevelopment project that will feature a 260-key hotel, a mixed-use development and a new park.
Another $4 million will complete remediation on an adjacent open space site that will feature the entryway plaza leading to the proposed stadium.
The soccer stadium project is being spearheaded by tech millionaire André Swanston, whose Connecticut United Football Club will become part of Major League Soccer’s development league MLS NEXT Pro. Swanston previously claimed that he “invested millions of his own dollars into the project and has received commitments from private investors,” but insisted that the endeavor “will be difficult to complete without some level of state support.”
Lamont has been wary of providing public funds for the stadium, telling a recent press conference that he wanted “to see significant private investment for something like this.” With the remediation funds, however, he insisted the state was “doing our part … in terms of environmental cleanup and the brownfields.”
The new stadium would be the second attempt within roughly a quarter-century to use minor league sports stadium as an economic pillar in Bridgeport – a minor league baseball stadium was built in the city’s downtown in 1998 but was closed in 2017 and later converted into an outdoor concert amphitheater.
Photo: Artist’s rendering of the proposed Bridgeport stadium, courtesy Connecticut United Football Club.
;
