February 21, 2020
The Summit at Danbury
Plans by Summit Development, basesd in the Southport section of Fairfield, call for transforming the 1.2 million-square-foot Matrix Corporate Center, formerly the world headquarters of Union Carbide.
Summit’s $18 million purchase of the west side property in 2018 is just the start of its investment in a plan to build 400 apartments, 600,000 square feet of office and retail space, and a 100,000-square-foot conference center.
The mega-development is called The Summit at Danbury and is expected to take two years to complete.
“It’s essentially a city within a city,” Michael Basile, project manager for Summit Development, told The News-Times earlier this month.
The Summit has drawn headlines not only for its potential to reshape Danbury’s already booming west side, but because of a “student-impact fee” the developer agreed to pay the city.
The agreement, described as the first of its kind in the state, requires the developer to pay the city $550,000 the first year, in addition to an estimated $860,000 in annual taxes, and $750,000 in later years in addition to taxes, through 2039.