Lamont, DeLauro Tout Vision of Shoreline Stratford Redevelopment at Site ofAircraft Engine Plant

Originally published by CT Examiner. Reporting by Nick Sambides Jr

8.6.2026

This is the former Army aircraft engine plant in stratford, now under demolition as it is prepared for a multi-use retail residential and Commercial project expected to generate as much as $20 million in tax revenue (CT Examiner)

STRATFORD – U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Gov. Ned Lamont turned up to tout the completion of $74.6 million of dredging along the shoreline of the former Army Aircraft Engine plant, calling it the beginning of a new era for the historic property.

The removal or reuse of as much as 233,000 tons of PCB-contaminated sediment allows the state to begin the next phase of the project – a boardwalk or nature trail connecting the restored Housatonic River tidal flats at 550 Main St. to Short Beach and Stratford Point Lighthouse and the Birdseye Street Boat Launch area, officials said.

Meanwhile, property owner Point Stratford Renewal continues to raze the rest of the 77-acre former plant to make way for what developers envision as a hotel or apartment complex with commercial and retail businesses within the next five years.

Lamont said the project is expected provide needed housing and generate $10 million to $20 million in property taxes for the city.

“This gives young people a place to be, for workforce housing to be,” Lamont said. “That helps as well. Growing the economy, growing opportunity makes a big difference. So I’m really proud to see this reimagining of this location that has such a storied history, and it’s just getting started.”

Home to Rosie the Riveter, Corsairs, helicopter history

The rebirth of the tidal flats is well ahead of schedule and under budget according to the developers. By using sheet pile walls to create a temporary reservoir, allowing the dredging to proceed without the influence of tides, and safely burying and capping the sediments within the property, the developers cut 24 months and more than 2,000 truck trips from the project’s schedule to save $60 million, according to Jim Cabrera, a partner at Point Stratford.

“What was built on this property over the last hundred years is now history,” Cabrera said.  

“What we build here in the next hundred years is the future.”

And what a history it has had.

The Sikorsky Aircraft plant now owned by Lockheed Martin is near where Igor Sikorsky piloted his first flying boat in 1926 and where the first tethered helicopter took flight on Sept. 14, 1939. The first successful free flight came on May 13, 1940.

About 7,000 gull-winged Vought-Sikorsky F4U Corsairs, fighter planes flown by U.S., Australian and British marines and navy pilots in World War II and Korean conflict, were manufactured there.

The Stratford property was the workplace of Rosalind Walter – or Rosie the Riveter — an exemplar of the civilian war effort during WWII.

Aviation pioneers Amelia Earhart, Howard Hughes and Charles Lindbergh visited there. Sikorsky’s presence there led to the legendary U.S. Army 56 th  Pursuit Fighter Squadron testing and training on the first batch of Republic P-47 fighters at Bridgeport Municipal Airport in July, 1942, seven months after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Corsair and P-47 both used the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double-Wasp engine pioneered and manufactured in East Hartford. The Stratford engine plant manufactured the Avco Lycoming gas turbine engine used in Sikorsky helicopters and the M1-Abrams tank.

The plant was also the center of a political fight in the 1990s, said DeLauro, who recounted her unsuccessful efforts to keep engine manufacturing in Stratford before the plant closed in 1995.

“I have to say, there’s a couple of short stories here, and to the Army folks who are here, I fought like Hell with you guys to keep this plant open, and it had no business going to Alabama, but so be it,” DeLauro said.

State Rep. Jim Gresko, who represents Stratford as the 121st House Assembly District, remembered how the engine plant dominated that end of town. In the 1970s, when he was growing up on Mary Avenue in the west end of town, he said he knew better than to go anywhere near the army engine plant on weekday afternoons. Cars flooded Main Street as hundreds of workers hustled through shift change at the plant, owned at the time by AlliedSignal. Rosie’s Pizza, Cricket Car Hop — then on Main Street — bars, gas stations and grocery stores would be packed with customers.

“With all the traffic, you learned pretty quickly to never come down here at three in the afternoon,” the 62-year-old Gresko recalled.

Hanging over the ceremony were hopes that Point Stratford would spur a 21st-century version of the plant’s success.

Plans for the property are vague, but Mayor David Chess promised the cleanup would spur water-view housing, shopping, restaurants, perhaps a hotel, a conference center, a sports facility and some sort of

performance space.

“We’re starting a new chapter that will transform not only this place, but one that will put Stratford on the map as a destination,” Chess said. “We will be opening up miles of waterfront to the public for the first time in over a century. It’s a reminder to have boardwalks, we’ll have attractions, and we’ll have green space for people to come together.”

“This next phase will take a community, another great collaboration. It will require public-private partnership,” Chess added.

“None of us do any of this stuff alone. It will require thoughtful planning and multi-tiered financing. The good news is we have all the right ingredients right here.”

Gresko said that he hoped that the waterfront project could begin next year. The two-mile boardwalk is envisioned as key to the project, allowing visitors to experience the Sound and imagine what the property can do for the town, he said.

“People have been promised this and they’ve been cut off from this for so long that I just think it’s criminal not to allow the public to now have access,” Gresko said.

The next meeting for the project leaders and residents is set for Sept. 2. Point Stratford representatives have also been meeting with town civic groups and neighborhood associations throughout the last two months.