Stamford wants to lure grocery stores downtown with tax breaks

[Excerpt from article by Shaniece Harper, September 28, 2026]

STAMFORD — Why are Stamford’s most populous areas struggling to access healthy food? City officials say it’s because there aren’t enough full-service supermarkets.

City Rep. Ryan Hughes said the lack of grocery options in the city’s most densely populated neighborhoods — Downtown, South End and East Side — is harmful, especially to the city’s most vulnerable residents.

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Hughes is proposing to make these neighborhoods part of an “Urban Grocery Store Development District” designed to attract new grocers by offering financial incentives like property tax reductions and fixed-assessment agreements.

“It is the city agreeing to collect less money, but in doing that, we’re letting the grocery retailer serve our community,” Hughes said. “If you’re going to come to our urban center and open a grocery store, you’re serving our public health. I believe that it is worth it for the city to collect less tax revenue.”

However, Hughes said as work on the ordinance continues, officials can consider at what point to limit the benefits.

“We can write into the ordinance a cap of actually how much incentive the entire program can give out to make sure it isn’t something that ends up impacting the taxpayer,” he said. “We don’t want to do that, we want to be responsible for taxpayers.”

Leah Kagan, the city’s director of economic development, said she supports the plan.

“I think grocery stores are a unique business because they provide a critical service to residents, and therefore there is a higher need and urgency to support attracting that type of business,” she said. “Stamford’s grand list is very strong, and it’s a goal to continue to grow the grand list so that we have additional revenue coming into the city. We need to balance that in a variety of ways, and the short-term impact of this potential fixed assessment will provide a stronger benefit to the community than the potential loss of short-term revenue.”

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The hunt to replace Fairway Market

Kagan said the closure of the South End’s Fairway Market location at 699 Canal St. in 2020 was a “big departure” and she’s been working with Darien-based developer V20 Group, who bought the property in July 2024, to get a new business into that space.

“They’re very aware of the community’s requests. I think they’ve done a great job at trying to be responsive there,” Kagan said.

V20 Group posted a survey in August asking for feedback from the public about what type of business they wanted in that space.

The survey received 2,895 responses. The results showed that 96% of the respondents wanted a grocery store. Also, the results showed: half of the respondents were Harbor Point residents, located in the South End; and 81% of the respondents said they didn’t have a grocery store within a mile from where they live.

Unfortunately, Fairway market wasn’t Stamford’s only closing of a grocer. The West Side also lost a supermarket when its Stop & Shop location at 1937 West Main St. closed in 2024. It was one of the five Stop & Shop locations that closed in Connecticut that year.

Stamford’s ‘significant’ population growth

Officials said Stamford’s rapid population growth was the catalyst for the ordinance. According to DataHaven, Stamford’s population jumped by 10% from 2010 to 2020, resulting in a total population of 135,470 people.

In comparison, the state’s population grew by only 1% within that decade.

Currently, Stamford’s population stands at about 140,500 people, according to World Population Review.

As part of the population boom, Stamford’s housing stock also increased by 13% from 2010 to 2020, with 6,381 additional units, according to DataHaven.

In that decade, the South End saw a 140% increase in its population, totaling almost 4,500 more people; Downtown’s population increased by 23%; and the East Side increased by just 2%, DataHaven data showed.

“Each of these neighborhoods has seen population growth, and it is important that those residents have access to grocery stores in their neighborhoods and are not required to travel as far for these basic necessities,” Kagan said.

Why is it hard to get a new grocery store downtown?

Hughes said it’s difficult to get grocery stores to open in urban areas because it’s “a lot more expensive” compared to suburban communities due to limited parking, restrictive loading regulations and small profit margins.

Hughes said he’ll also be working closely with the city’s zoning board and city building department to work on easing some of those issues.

“We’re really trying to overcome that barrier of how much it costs to operate a grocery store in an urban area,” he said.

Hughes said the closest Downtown has to a grocery store is Target, and he said that is not always guaranteed, like when it temporarily closed in July due to flooding.

“There’s a Target that has a small market, but when I talk to constituents, they make it clear that that Target is not enough and doesn’t fulfill their grocery shopping needs,” he said.

Kristen Cooksey Stowers, assistant professor at the University of Connecticut’s Department of Allied Health Sciences, has worked with residents and community organizations in Hartford to improve grocery store access in the city’s North Hartford Promise Zone, which hasn’t had a grocery store in decades.

In both Stamford and Hartford, she said, conducting research is essential to ensure history doesn’t repeat itself.

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