Connecticut Waterfront Project Cleared in 2007 to Sell Munis

  • Bridgeport’s Steelpointe Harbor to issue almost $50 million
  • Developer envisions adding three apartment buildings, hotel

Joseph Ganim, mayor of Bridgeport, speaks to the media following a news conference at Steelpointe Harbor in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 2017.

Photographer: Douglas Healey/Bloomberg
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A district set up to transform part of Bridgeport, Connecticut’s waterfront plans to sell about $50 million of unrated municipal debt as soon as this week, in what amounts to a bond-market bet on future development for which financing has yet to be secured.

A subsidiary of RCI Group has built a 220-slip marina, a 150,000-square-foot store for outdoor retailer Bass Pro Shops and a mixed-use lighthouse building since the project was approved in 2007. But the developers of the largely vacant Steelpointe Harbor on Long Island Sound are still betting they can create a neighborhood of apartments, shops and offices about 60 miles (97 kilometers) from New York City, on the site of a former steel works.