TUESDAY: Mayor Finch to Celebrate Grand Opening of New Downtown Restaurant
“Downtown is a growing neighborhood that is home to great restaurants, thriving businesses that are creating hundreds of jobs and hundreds of housing options. Job creators, investors and small business owners are seeing the progress in downtown and are choosing to open their businesses here.” – Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch
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WHO: Mayor Finch, Valerio Fernandes, business owner.
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WHAT: Grand opening of Funchal Café on the Green.
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WHEN: Tuesday @ 9:00AM EST.
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WHERE: 211 State Street in Bridgeport, Conn.
Bridgeport, Conn. (June 8, 2015) – Tomorrow, Mayor Bill Finch will celebrate the grand opening of Funchal Café on the Green, a new restaurant located in Bridgeport’s improving downtown neighborhood.
“Downtown is a growing neighborhood that is home to great restaurants, thriving businesses that are creating hundreds of jobs and hundreds of housing options,” said Mayor Finch. “Job creators, investors and small business owners are seeing the progress in downtown and are choosing to open their businesses here.”
The new restaurant marks the second downtown location for owner Valerio Fernandes who is also the owner of Funchal Café located at 881 Lafayette Boulevard. The new location will offer sandwiches, salads, wraps, Paninis and sushi.
Funchal Café of the Green is located at 211 State Street, a historic 57,600 square foot retail and office building located at the corner of State Street and Broad Street in downtown Bridgeport developed by Forstone Capitol. Additionally, Forstone has developed the Landmark apartments in the former Mechanics & Farmers Building, and recently announced plans for a German beer hall in the original People’s Bank building at 155 State Street along with a comedy club at the former Playhouse on the Green.
Funchal Café on the Green’s grand opening comes one day after the announcement that construction has begun on the Security Building, at 1115 Main St., an eight-story building built in 1904 by the Security Building Company. It was designed by architect Lucius L. Bridge of Philadelphia in the Queen Anne/Colonial Revival style. The Security Building and two adjacent structures at 1103 and 1135 Main St. are being redeveloped by Spinnaker Real Estate Partners, LLC.
This will create more residential options for people to move to downtown Bridgeport (06604 zip code), which has the second highest concentration of residents in their 20s in Fairfield County, with 19.5 percent. And 06604 zip code is significantly younger than the nation as a whole, with 13.8 percent of Americans in their 20s.
Also, work already is underway across the street in the a long-neglected block. The Jayson Building (179 Middle St.) and the Newfield Building (1184 Main St.) will be combined into one structure, the Jayson-Newfield Building. It will serve as home to 104 new apartments and 8,000 square feet of ground floor retail space.