Name: Developer touts ‘hidden little treasures’ and ‘cool features’ of downtown Danbury apartment project
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Developer touts ‘hidden little treasures’ and ‘cool features’ of downtown Danbury apartment project

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DANBURY - A 149-unit complex under construction on Main Street could begin renting apartments with a downtown view by the winter holiday season.“The pandemic is definitely making construction across the country difficult, but our partners at DiMarco Group are doing a great job dealing with the challenges,” said Dan Bertram, the Danbury-based developer of the city’s since Kennedy Flats. “We feel we are well in position to deliver this building by the end of the year.”Rents, which would range from $1,450 for a studio to $2,600 for the most expensive two-bedroom apartment, would represent the first downtown units to come online since the 2016 completion of the complex across Main Street.The idea is not only to market the apartments to the relocating to Fairfield County in search of less coronavirus stress, but to test research suggesting the demand for retail housing in downtown Danbury is growing.A recent study overseen by a Danbury task force to revitalize the downtown’s nightlife, rebuild its streetscapes and attract 1,200 new apartments, for example.“COVID has created a housing demand and a lot of it has to do with this exodus from New York across all categories of residential real estate,” Bertram said. “But we feel confident that we can continue the work we started years ago in downtown Danbury, and we have seen nothing that has happened in the last couple of years to change that.”Bertram is referring to Brookfield Commons, a 115-apartment building he built on the west bank of Padanaram Brook on Crosby Street, which will connect to the new complex on Main Street with a bridge over the brook and an enclosed skybridge.This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateThe connections would give Brookfield Commons tenants access to amenities in the new building, including a three-season terrace and outdoor pool on the second floor, overlooking Main Street.“These aren’t inexpensive amenities but the skybridge connecting the two buildings over the brook is one of those hidden little treasures,” said Bertram. “The balconies that all the new apartments will have and the pool are cool features.”More for youBertram has not said how much the project costs, except to say that it meets the minimum $13 million investment required to qualify for a seven-year deferral of city taxes on improvements to the building.In April BRT General Corp. and DiMarco Group were awarded a $24.5 million construction loan for the project, reported.After several years of demolition and site work at the former headquarters of , construction of the six-story building has begun on the three-acre site at 333 Main St., across the street from Kennedy Flats.In addition to the ground floor, which will house a parking garage, a retail space facing Main Street, and space in the back of the building for a gym, a community room and a leasing office, builders have begun framing the first floor.The hope is that when complete, the 160,000-square-foot building will have a relationship with Main Street that will inspire more downtown revival.“It’s always an attraction that Main Street is not far from I-84, but with this project you do have a walkable experience once you get home, where you can go out and walk down the street and grab a bite to eat,” Bertram said. “It’s only going to get better over time as more and more people with disposable income move downtown.”rryser@newstimes.com 203-731-3342

DANBURY - A 149-unit complex under construction on Main Street could begin renting apartments with a downtown view by the winter holiday season.“The pandemic is definitely making construction across the country difficult, but our partners at DiMarco Group are doing a great job dealing with the challenges,” said Dan Bertram, the Danbury-based developer of the city’s since Kennedy Flats. “We feel we are well in position to deliver this building by the end of the year.”Rents, which would range from $1,450 for a studio to $2,600 for the most expensive two-bedroom apartment, would represent the...

Developer touts ‘hidden little treasures’ and ‘cool features’ of downtown Danbury apartment project

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