A successful formula employed by Peter DiNardo Enterprises targets the most environmentally challenged properties and sites that are often eyesores and mired in heavy tax liens. By relying on our own capital and resources and often using their own development crews, DiNardo will undertake the demolition, clearing and environmental clean-up of a contaminated site for eventual re-use. Referred to as Brownfield properties, often such sites have such high negative values that few can yield sufficient value quickly enough following a clean-up to warrant the investment.
Peter DiNardo Enterprises has learned from experience, however, that along with ample resources, patience is often required for turning around such problem properties. In 1998, DiNardo acquired the long vacant 380,000 square feet Bridgeport Brass complex, located on 12+ acres along Housatonic Avenue in Bridgeport, CT. Established in 1865, the Bridgeport Brass produced nearly all forms of brass and copper product until it closed permanently in the 1970s. Recognizing there was no value to the building but that it sat on a site with good visibility and easy access to the highway, Peter DiNardo Enterprises spent $5 million of their own funds to demolish, clear, remediate and grade the property to make it shovel-ready for new construction. This clean-up was made possible in part with assistance from the city on prior back taxes.
Fast forward ten years later, in 2008, Greenwich-based United Rental, Inc., the largest rental company in the world with a network of 700 rental outlets in 48 states, identified DiNardo’s Brass site as meeting all the requirements necessary for moving its Fairfield, CT branch to a new $10 million equipment distribution center at the Bridgeport site, and just as importantly, have it done quickly. In order to consummate the deal, Peter Dinardo Enterprises was able obtain all local approvals for construction of the new facility in a timely manner and come to an agreement with United Rentals on a long-term lease for 6 acres of the site. Upon completion, the facility represented the second largest United Rental branch in the country and returned what was a once blighted unproductive property back onto the tax rolls.