“Bridgeport is investing in the future, making our city a place where our kids and grandkids will choose to live, work, and raise their families. We’re creating jobs and growing our economy through several development projects, such as Steelpointe Harbor, downtown and the East Bridgeport Development corridor. Milestone Apartments will create more jobs, more housing opportunities, and more economic opportunities for our East End neighborhood. This development is further proof that Bridgeport is getting better every day.” – Mayor Bill Finch
Bridgeport, Conn. (March 20, 2015) – Mayor Bill Finch joined Bridgeport Neighborhood Trust (BNT) and community leaders today to celebrate construction of the Milestone Apartments in the city’s East End. The new, three-story building will be home to an Early Childhood Education Center run by ABCD Inc. and 30 new apartments that will provide affordable housing on the second and third floors. One third of the apartments will be reserved for veterans returning who are coming home after defending our country.
“Bridgeport is investing in the future, making our city a place where our kids and grandkids will choose to live, work, and raise their families,” said Mayor Bill Finch. “We’re creating jobs and growing our economy through several development projects, such as Steelpointe Harbor, downtown and the East Bridgeport Development corridor. Milestone Apartments will create more jobs, more housing opportunities, and more economic opportunities for our East End neighborhood. This development is further proof that Bridgeport is getting better every day.”
On Friday morning, the community joined Mayor Finch, state Sen. Edward Gomes, state Rep. Andre Baker, City Council members Eneida Martinez, Milta Feliciano and James Holloway and state and local officials on Stratford Avenue to celebrate a steel rising for the new 9,000-square-foot building in East Bridgeport.
This project will create over 100 jobs and millions of dollars in economic development for the Park City.
“It’s contagious,” said Mayor Finch, pointing to new construction projects underway or completed at Steelpointe, downtown, Downtown North, the East End, West Side, Black Rock, Sound End and virtually every other city neighborhood.
“There is so much that is going on in Bridgeport,” Mayor Finch said, including a new project that will place thousands of solar panels and a new fuel cell that will power an additional 5,000 homes with clean and renewable energy. “We’re creating jobs and new parks and a growing tax base that is making Bridgeport a place where people chose to raise their kids and grandkids.”
This morning, Mayor Finch and BNT celebrated the first steel rising at the new Milestone Apartments.
“This development is appropriately names because it is a milestone, the first of I hope many for the East End,” he said.
The first floor of the building will contain a pre-kindergarten program operated by Action for Bridgeport Community Development Inc. (ABCD) in another step to make Bridgeport the first municipality in the state to have universal pre-K. Upstairs, there will be 30 units of affordable housing, a third of which will be reserved for military veterans.
BNT Chairman Terence Floyd said the housing and supportive services for veterans hold particular significance for him. His father, a Vietnam veteran, passed away nine months ago and he often spoke that the government and community needs to more to support its returning veterans.
“When I look at this project and I see that the priority for some of the units is for veterans, it warms my heart,” Floyd said.
Mayor Finch’s administration has worked with BNT to see the project through. Around two years ago the city’s Anti-Blight department razed a dilapidated building that was located on one of the four parcels on which Milestone will be built.
Elizabeth Torres, the chief executive officer of BNT, said Mayor Finch and city Economic Development director David Kooris were key partners in the process.
“Today is a big day for the East End of Bridgeport. We are starting construction on a major project here,” she said. “We have been working in this community for three years now, working hand in hand with the City of Bridgeport, David Kooris and Mayor Bill Finch. They have been extremely helpful.”
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