The former PSEG plant located near downtown Bridgeport will soon be demolished and a private developer will consider what to do with the 33-acre site.
That’s according to Gov. Ned Lamont, who spoke at the site on Tuesday.
“Just five years ago, this was belching coal fired smoke out the neighborhood, and now, as you heard, probably a mix of residential and mixed use and open space," Lamont said. "It's an amazing bit of progress that I think we all should be proud of."
The PSEG plant, in service from the 1950s to 2021, used to power much of Bridgeport’s business base, but shuttered as the state signaled a move away from fossil fuels.
Demolition is expected to occur within a three-year timespan, removing a visible part of the city’s skyline. But while the site is expected to be a draw due to its location near the waterfront, officials say environmental remediation is needed.
The site, with its distinct striped smokestack, will be demolished in stages, according to Chad Parks, a developer with Bridgeport Station Development.
“You will indeed start to see a skyline changing over the coming months with ongoing demolition," Parks said. "Our schedule has had the site clean and flat three years from today, and started vertical building in roughly two years."
Bridgeport Station Development purchased the site for $1, according to Parks. The site will need environmental remediation, which has been ongoing in some form since 2002, when the plant was acquired by PSEG.
More investigation would need to be done before anything gets built, according to Katie Dykes, commissioner of Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
“Once we have that information in hand, now the developer is going to assess what are the options for the development of the site ... and what is the cost of cleaning up what's in the ground,” Dykes said.
The plant, in service for 50 years, provided an estimated 400 megawatts of power during peak usage, according to a press release by PSEG in 2021. The plant, originally built to use oil and coal, switched to coal only by 2002.
But coal is also expensive to ship and use, especially since the state lacks coal reserves, according to Yale University. By that point, the energy sector largely moved away from coal and most of the state is powered by natural gas and other sources, including renewable fuels.
But the costs aren’t just monetary.
Coal is also a significant source of air pollution and Bridgeport’s asthma and respiratory illness rates are higher than the state’s average. According to the state’s Department of Health Website, the city’s asthma hospitalization rates from 2014 were significantly higher in the census tracts near the plant itself.
The department was contacted for updated hospitalization rates in the years since the plant closed, but there was no immediate response.
The plant’s effects also extended into the quality of life many faced in neighboring streets. Democratic State Rep. Antonio Felipe, who represents the city, said when he was growing up, he saw the stark difference between residents who lived close to the plant versus those who didn’t.
“The amount of TLC that was lacking in the area, the south end, when you passed Park Avenue, in the underpass, when you passed the train tracks, it felt different,” Felipe said.
