When Stamford experienced a huge boom in commercial real estate during the sixties and seventies, many of the large corporations moved their head offices into the Stamford area to capitalize on the town’s growth. The tall offices building now making up the Stamford landscape have created a huge urban redevelopment and the town continues to prosper with ever growing success. Owing to Stamford’s proximity to the Manhattan and New York City areas, commuters enjoy Stamford luxury apartments available for renting or buying, enabling them to have either a second home in the area or buy and rent with a view to continued commuting.
It was F.D. Rich Co. who first started the contentious urban building project back in the 1960’s. They began the development as an ongoing project which expanded into the 1970’s. They also built the city’s tallest structure, known as One Landmark Square. It stands at twenty-one floors high and the Stamford Town Center, the Marriot Hotel and the GTE building. However, since then, the Trump Parc condo tower has been erected and is now the tallest building in Stamford, dwarfing the previously tallest by fourteen stories.
Growth and Change
Stamford’s Harbor Point has been the focus for an eighty acre redevelopment area suitable for mixed use and has added further growth to the south of the city’s ‘Downtown’ area. The development project has been underway since 2008 and when it is finally completed it will have six million square feet for retail, residential and hotel and office space. There will also be a marina to ‘pretty up’ the area.
The Stamford area is also headquarters for many of the Fortune 100, Fortune 500 and Courant 100 companies who have located and relocated to the Stamford area. Recently companies such as Gen Re, Pitney Bowes, UBS, Xerox, GE and NBC have moved their own headquarters or major offices to the Stamford area, along with the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Stamford is also able to brag that it has been in the top eleven cities in the United States for low crime. The city recently edged up to number nine in the ranks, making it even safer to live in. However, an increase in gang related crimes did increase the violent crime levels by twenty-nine percent between 2005 and 2006. Nowadays, the rates have lowered again.
