The gleaming new medical office and lab building at Main and Riverside streets is the first of three projects that could soon cover half the vacant space where the Bristol Centre Mall once stood, Mayor Ellen Zoppo-Sassu said Friday.
Bristol officially opened its newly built Hope Street through the old mall site in a ceremony Friday morning, and Bristol Health an hour later cut the ribbon for its 60,000-square-foot medical care center. That’s all key to the drive to drawcommercial, residential and retail development to downtown, city leaders said.
“This building is going to be a great catalyst for the city,” council member Dave Mills said at the medical office and lab, which opens to patients onMonday.
Elsewhere on the former mall property, developers Wesley Cyr and Oliver Wilson plan to break ground in late summer for a building with 12 apartments and office space. Zoppo-Sassu said a third developer will soon emerge with plans for a commercial building with the possibility of a first-floor restaurant.
If all of those plans pan out, about half of the 15-acre cityowned property would be developed, said Justin Malley, economic development director.
“We’re going with projects that fit what the people want here. We’re not just putting in anything,” Malley said. “We have one chance to get this right. We need to think about what this will be like 20 years from now.”
The city bought the mall property in the heart of downtown 14 years ago with plans to quickly transform it into a complex of civic buildings surrounded by new private development. But hope for state funding collapsed, andthe cityhas spentmorethan a decade seeking new projects to rebuild its once-thriving downtown.
“I was here the day they knocked down the mall, and I envisioned that it wouldn’t be long after that we’d see something on this property,” Bristol Health President Kurt Barwis said. “Just like every other resident of Bristol, I’ve been pained over the years to not see anything.”
Bristol Health, the new corporate name for the business that runs Bristol Hospital, Ingraham Manor and their associated operations, broke the longstanding impasse three years ago. Barwis and then-Mayor Ken Cockayne reached a deal to locate the new, $26 million medical center on the southeast corner of the property.
City leaders hope that the promise of hundreds of patient visits a day will attract retail and restaurant development.
Howard Schmelder, 76, said he’s been eager to see people return to downtown, which was once a busy hub of small businesses until urban renewal in the 1960s demolished most of the buildings. The mall succeeded for a while, but was mostly vacant by the time Bristol bought and demolished it.
“I was here when it was a beautiful downtown. I saw that taken down. I was here when they put up the mall, and I sawthat taken down,” said Schmelder, who has served on the city’s economic development board for more than 40 years. “Now I’ve seen this go up. In my opinion, this is great for Bristol. Patience paid off. We’re doing it the right way.”