The Ritz-Carlton hotel and condominium tower proposed off Atlantic Street and Tresser Boulevard is the third proposal for the site since 2000.

F.D. Rich Co., which built much of the downtown skyline in its role as the city’s urban redeveloper, had previously planned a 330-foot-tall office building on the site and a two-building development featuring a hotel and office tower. Another developer had proposed a 26-story office tower.

Neither development went forward, but F.D. Rich Co. president Thomas Rich exuded confidence with the latest plan during Monday night’s public hearing before the city Zoning Board.

“As a single project, this is the most spectacular thing we’ve been lucky enough to be involved in,” Rich said of his company’s plan to build a Ritz-Carlton with two 400-foot towers around the post office.

Zoning Board members have expressed enthusiasm for parts of the project but indicated they still have questions about a plan to raze the newer half of the historic post office on the site. Board members have also raised concerns about whether the building will meet environmental and energy guidelines as a “green building,” and how the building’s parking garage will hem in neighbors in the affordable apartment building next door.

Rich is collaborating with Westchester County, N.Y., developer Louis Cappelli on the hotel and condominium project, which would turn the 1916 post office on the site into a restaurant but demolish its 1939 addition, to the dismay of preservationists and at least one board member.

The two developers also have approval for the 350-foot-high Trump Parc condominium tower at the corner of Broad Street and Tresser Boulevard. Cappelli is building a similar Ritz-Carlton hotel and condominium project in White Plains, N.Y.

Rich has development rights to the land through agreements with two property owners: the U.S. Postal Service, which stopped using the historic building as its base of operations in the city years ago but still has a branch there; and the St. John Urban Development Corp., which owns the rest of the development site and operates the two cylindrical apartment towers on the same block.

The evolution in plans for the land has tracked the shift in Stamford’s real estate market from office development in the 1990s and early this decade to luxury residential buildings, producing a flood of development applications in or near downtown.

In July, 2003, the Zoning Board approved a plan for a 162-room Residence Inn hotel and a 150,000-square-foot office building on the site.

Rising costs forced the company to pull the plug on that project, Rich said Monday.

Before that proposal, another developer, Hines Interests, won permission in 2001 for a 26-story office tower on the site. Hines never went forward with the plan.

After gaining approval for the hotel and office building, which Rich said Monday night was intended to be built in phases, Rich changed the plan again, engaging architect Cesar Pelli to design a 330-foot office building for the site.

At the time, Royal Bank of Scotland was evaluating potential sites for a major expansion for its Greenwich Capital division.

“We pitched RBS for this to be their headquarters,” Rich said.

RBS eventually chose a site at the corner of Washington Boulevard and Richmond Hill Avenue, and started construction there last summer.

Also last summer, Rich and Cappelli announced they had inked a deal with Ritz-Carlton for a downtown site, but did not disclose the location until September.

The new plan features 198 hotel rooms, a new post office branch and retail space in the northern tower, nearly 289 condominiums and a high-end ballroom and meeting space with outdoor terraces on the hotel’s eighth floor.

Rich has said the building will produce more benefits for the city than any of the previous plans for the site.

In addition to a $1 million contribution to the Mill River Park and Greenway project - based on a formula the developers have proposed in return for extra height in downtown buildings - the building has more retail space, open space and public access than the previous proposals.

The building would enliven downtown streets, produce housing and retail close to the train station and provide about $4 million for affordable housing to satisfy city regulations, he said.

Rich said he thought the money could finance twice as many as the 24 affordable units that would be required if they were built on site, but at least one critic said the project is an example of a growing divide in the city between haves and have-nots.

“We do need to create a diversified environment, not only an environment for the most privileged people,” said Elizabeth Swat, president of the tenants association at St. John Towers, one of the few members of the public to speak during Monday’s hearing.

Source: www.stamfordadvocate.com

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