Exploring Ways to Enhance the East Side of Stamford

While Stamford is a little farther along in gathering investments for projects on the West Side of the city, the East Side is next on its list, with a proposed neighborhood plan centered around land use and transportation underway. In addition, there’s a proposal to bring a library branch to the neighborhood to better support that neighborhood.

“The reality is, though, we have an opportunity, with the $3 million from the federal government, this ARPA funding, to actually make a library happen in a community that we've identified as in great need of these services,” Bridget Fox, the mayor’s chief of staff, said. 

The East Side neighborhood is also one of the most diverse in the city, home to a population that is 38% Latino, 36% white, and 18% Black. It also has a 12% poverty rate and 26% of its residents are classified as low-income, according to city profiles from CT Data Haven. Fox said that the area was “economically distressed,” with a “significant number of children” in the area.

The neighborhood also has the highest rate of asthma in the city, with 13% of adults living with it, and one of the lowest life expectancies in Stamford—an average of 75.9 years compared to 86.2 years North Stamford and 84.2 for Shippan. 

The Board of Finance approved $373,875 in September for a Cove-East Side Neighborhood Plan, which officials said would help address safety concerns, particularly around a lack of sidewalks and transportation facilities. 

“We have a lot of neighborhood studies and transportation studies throughout the city—we don’t really have any that we know of in the Cove area,” Frank Petise, the city’s transportation bureau chief, said. 

He said the study would look at where sidewalks, bike lanes, parking might be needed as well as “land use that contributes to roadway design.” 

Petise said they had looked for grant funding to work on traffic issues and roadway design in the area, but without a plan, the city had been unsuccessful. He said he hoped this would help bring funding to support initiatives in the area. 

A New Library Branch

In 2022, Congressman Jim Himes secured $3 million for the city to plan and design an East Side library branch.

“Currently there is no public library on the East Side, making it difficult for residents to access library services,” Fox said. 

Fox said the city identified the old HUD center on Courtland Avenue, which is near a playground, as the potential East Side library branch site. The city was proposing to use $700,000 in remaining American Rescue Plan Act funds to put toward the design and plans for a new library. Overall, the city estimated that the total cost of the library could be between $8 and $10 million.

“It is an ideal location to have shared services on that site that is now so nicely used by so many families in the community,” Fox said. “We know how important it is to invest in public spaces, especially post COVID—which was the intent of ARPA funding—and in this case, providing education services to children and adults post-pandemic is something we feel nicely aligns with the ARPA intent.”

Alice Knapp, the CEO of the Ferguson Library, said they’ve been bringing the mobile bookmobile out to the site on weekends and found that, “as you suspect a library and a park are really nice companions—families are coming to the park on a Saturday morning and there’s the bookmobile, so they’re using the playground, they’re stopping by and picking up books—so we see that as a real advantage.”

Fox said they believed this was “a long-term investment in enhancing quality of life, expanding access to educational resources and promoting educational equity, fulfilling our obligation to provide public services to Stamford residents.”

Knapp said that in addition to reading, libraries are providing services to residents like internet access for both adults applying to jobs and children doing homework who don’t have access at home.

However, Board of Finance members questioned the use of ARPA funds for this project since the funds must be allocated by Dec. 31, 2024 this year and used by Dec. 31, 2026 or else the funds go back to the federal government. 

“I think it's a stretch to think that we would have that money spent by December of 2026, and I don’t want myself or this board to be put in a position where we’re being asked to reapprove things because we’ve got a 12/26 deadline, and if we don’t approve it, we’re going to miss the deadline,” Board Member J.R. McMullen said. 

Board members also expressed frustration about the lack of information about this proposal that was submitted to them. 

“We have precious little information on this—any of the details about what it is, how it’s going to affect the operating costs of the library, we have no information on this,” Board Chair Richard Freedman said. “We have no schematics, no visions, no scoping document, no we have, we don't have anything for what is for this board, a pretty big capital approval request. And it's kind of tough to make a decision on this request of this magnitude, with no information.”

The board also said it was interested in an idea that was floated that would add the public library to the planned new South School. 

Fox said they knew of the “complicated nature of building schools,” particularly on “small properties,” like what is being proposed for the South School. She also said the ARPA funds gave them a creative way to bring a library to this neighborhood. 

Board members did say they were supportive of a library on the East Side, but noted they wanted more information and to look at using different funds so they weren’t going to run into deadline issues. 

Matt Quinones, the director of operations for Stamford, said that discussing this item was “helpful to get a better sense for board members’ sensitivity and support for the concept of this.” 

He said that they’ll plan to bring the item back before the board in the future, thinking about different forms of funding for the project as well as a potential reduction in scope, which would also make it less expensive.