Norwalk resident Allison McChord is gripping onto a pole while riding inside an ATV behind her husband, Austin McChord, as they take in the sights of a former power plant on Manresa Island.
“I do have motion sickness, but this is so open and there’s such a nice breeze that it’s perfect,” Allison McChord said.
McChord and her husband are being driven around by Democratic State Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, an hour after wrapping up a news conference announcing they would turn the island into a public park and community hub.
The New York Times first reported that the couple recently purchased the property for $40 million. That information was then confirmed independently by CT Public.
SCAPE, the architecture firm handling the project, announced the 125-acre site will be turned into an accessible park and will host an ecological habitat, as well as a variety of community amenities — from a public beach to thermal pools — and a pier.
The view from the rooftop of the Manresa Island power-plant includes views to the northeast of Connecticut’s shoreline. Austin and Allison McChord have purchased the plant and plan to transform the site into a park as a gift to their hometown of Norwalk. Credit: Mark Mirko / Connecticut Public
Allison McChord said while the space will benefit the public, she is sensitive to any disruptions to the community.
“We don’t want to increase traffic, noise, but some of those things come with doing a project like this,” she said. “But the website feedback started to come in, and it just was overwhelmingly positive, and makes you feel so good about what we’re doing.”
Jessica Vonashek is the executive director of Manresa Island Corp., the nonprofit working on the development project, along with architecture firms SCAPE and Bjarke Ingels Group.
Vonashek said the project will need environmental remediation and while she says there isn’t a rough timeline yet, she expects much of the space to be ready by the end of the decade.
“We’re still exploring it, and we’re also exploring the development of the site as well,” Vonashek said. “So we anticipate that parts of the park will be open as soon as possible for the public to be able to enjoy, but we imagine a lot of the programming to be complete by 2030.”
The park will keep a former power plant that used to be operated by NRG Energy until 2013 when it was closed in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. That will be turned into what the release called a community hub.
As for how the McChords were able to buy it, the couple’s fortune largely resulted from Austin McChord’s founding of the company Datto, a data backup company, which he left in 2018.
Allison McChord said she and her husband made the decision to buy the island in much the same manner that many married couples do.
Austin and Allison McChord speak at a press conference Oct. 1, 2024, outside the Manresa Island power-plant in Norwalk, Connecticut. The couple have purchased the plant and plan to transform the site into a park as a gift to their hometown of Norwalk. Credit: Mark Mirko / Connecticut Public
“We were literally making dinner one night, and he said, ‘You know, I think we could probably buy this and turn it into a park,’” she said. “And I said, ‘Sure, that sounds great.’”
This story was first published Oct. 1, 2024 by Connecticut Public.