RIDGEWAY CENTER
Summer and 6th Streets
Fairfield County (Stamford), Connecticut
Alphons Bach was a multifaceted watercolor artist, architect and industrial designer. Born in Germany in 1904, he migrated to New York City in 1926. In 1932, he established an industrial design firm and soon became recognized for his tubular steel furniture, appliance designs and renovations of retail stores.
Bach relocated to Stamford, Connecticut in 1937. At the end of World War II, he entered the realm of real estate development. A 15-acre site, lying .8 mile north of Stamford's center city, would become the first regional shopping center in Connecticut.
Designed by Bach and the Thorn & Jorge firm, the first phase shopping complex opened for business on March 26, 1947. Charles E. Moore (Mayor of Stamford) cut a ceremonial ribbon. Charter RIDGEWAY CENTER tenants included W.J. Sloan Home Furnishings (October 1948), Pennsylvania Drug (May 1949), Deena's, Chizzini, Fisher Fordick, Young Set and a Slenderella Figure Salon.
Construction commenced on a second phase in February 1950. This southern block of stores included a 6-story office building, designed by Stamford's Bertram Lee Whinston, a 3-level (72,000 square foot) Sears and single-screen cinema. Originally known as the Navist Theatres Ridgeway Theatre, the venue showed a first feature on August 31, 1951.
The third -and final- RIDGEWAY construction phase entailed the addition of a central store block. This housed a 2-level (37,000 square foot) Saks 34th Street, which opened for business on April 29, 1958. A Grand Central Market grocery was housed in a basement floor. RIDGEWAY CENTER now encompassed approximately 350,000 leasable square feet and housed forty-six stores and services.
RIDGEWAY CENTER was sold to a joint venture, headed by Harry B. Helmsley, in February 1960. Ridgeway Center Associates, another New York City-based joint venture, acquired the complex in October 1960. Silverstein and Mendik, a third joint venture, took possession in October 1976.
The RIDGEWAY CENTER Saks closed and re-opened, as a Gimbels branch, on July 12, 1965. This store was shuttered in 1986. It became a Hartford-based Sage-Allen on November 12 of the same year. Meanwhile, a major shopping center competitor was being developed.
STAMFORD TOWN CENTER, a center city urban renewal project, opened in stages between February and April of 1982 and immediately usurped the smaller and older shopping hub. By the early 1990s, RIDGEWAY CENTER was being described as a "hodgepodge of lackluster architecture punctuated with vacant stores."
The complex was now owned by a joint venture of Manhattan's Larry Silverstein and the Planned Expansion Group, of White Plains, New York. A renovation and expansion had been envisaged in 1982, but was opposed by local residents. Several years of litigation followed.
Sage-Allen was shuttered in December 1992. Grand Central Market vacated their basement level store at around the same time. The Sage-Allen space sat vacant for nearly a year, with Marshalls moving in in late 1993. Sears, a charter RIDGEWAY tenant, closed in early 1996. Marshalls moved, temporarily, into the upper level of the vacant Sears.
By this time, the long-awaited RIDGEWAY remodeling was underway. The old Saks structure was demolished and replaced with a larger building. This housed several big box-type retailers. A (47,000 square foot) Bed, Bath & Beyond occupied ground level space. The upper level contained a (27,000 square foot) Michaels and (33,800 square foot) Marshalls. A (60,000 square foot) Stop & Shop supermarket was installed in the basement.
The office building was demolished and the entirety of the shopping center structure fitted with brick facades, pitched roofs and spans of glass. A multilevel parking garage was also built in the northwest corner of the site. Stores in the original shopping center, such as Salvatore's Restaurant, Fayva Shoes and Baskin-Robbins ice cream, remained in business.
A renewed RIDGEWAY CENTER was dedicated in May 1998. It now enveloped 331,000 square feet of retail stores and 29,000 square feet of office suites. There were thirty-seven tenants, including Staples, CVS and Old Navy. Greenwich, Connecticut's Urstadt Biddle properties bought an interest in RIDGEWAY CENTER in July 2002.
In 2003, Urstadt Biddle began to refurbish and retenant space in the south store block. The movie theater had been shuttered in the year 2000. It was reconfigured as part of a (42,700 square foot) LA Fitness. Adjacent office space was also gutted and incorporated into the new fitness facility. A (19,800 square foot) Modell's Sporting Goods opened, in upper level space, on September 27, 2007.
In January 2011, Urstadt Biddle established full ownership of the shopping complex. In May 2023, they sold it to Jacksonville-based Regency Centers. In the previous year, Bed, Bath & Beyond had shuttered their store. The vacant space was assumed by Burlington, who opened for business on July 5, 2024.
Sources:
The New York Times
The Hartford Courant
The Pentwater News (Pentwater, Michigan)
The Hour (Norwalk, Connecticut)
The Stamford Advocate (Stamford, Connecticut)
The Sunday Herald (Bridgeport, Connecticut)
The Bridgeport Post
The Architectural Record
https://collection.cooperhewitt.org / Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum
"Urstadt Biddle Properties: The History of a REIT 1969-2007" / Gene Brown
https://www.cinematreasures.org
https://movie-theatre.org
http://www.permutterproperties.com
http://www.ubproperties.com / Urstadt Biddle Properties
https://www.ctinsider.com / Connecticut Insider
https://www.regencycenters.com / Regency Centers
