Decrepit Abandoned Industrial Site in Danbury Up For Sale to Highest Bidder

In September 2019, I published an article titled Danbury's Decrepit Amphenol Eyesore to Be Demolished. The report stated that Danbury took ownership of the long-abandoned 2 1/2 acre piece of property at 33 East Franklin Street.

Get our free mobile app

Fast forward to August of 2021 and the property is still contaminated with arsenic, mercury, and remnants of the chemicals used during the factory's heyday. At one point during Mayor Boughton's administration, ideas were kicked around such as tearing down all the abandoned buildings to construct basketball courts. That never came to fruition.

Jump ahead to March of 2022, and according to the CT Post, lawmakers have agreed to seek the highest bidder for the contaminated former Amphenol factory. A suggestion was made recently from a Democratic lawmaker about building an elementary school on the 3-acre property. Here is how City Council member Joe Cavo reacted to that suggestion.

This property has been sitting in the current state that it is in, which is absolutely horrendous... and I don’t believe in my heart that a lot of parents are going to want their elementary school kids to go to school on a property that is so badly contaminated - remediated or not.

Cavo went on to say that the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) told Danbury lawmakers that the site is so contaminated that "it cannot be inhabited." It cost the city $1.3 million to clean up the 5-acre former hat factory property on Rose Street.