A vacant seven-story office tower on Stamford's Shippan Point waterfront is being transformed into 63 luxury condominiums, with construction now underway on a project backed by a $75 million loan. The development, called The Caspian, sits on a 1.38-acre parcel at 68-70 Seaview Ave. and will include access to an existing 57-slip marina on Long Island Sound.
A Decades-Old Office Tower Gets New Life
Sun Homes partnered with Hudson Bay Capital on the project, as reported by Westfair Communications. The 241,000-square-foot building was completed in 1986 and sat vacant for several years after serving as regional office space for corporate tenants including XL America, Fraser Papers and Cox Target Media, according to Multi-Housing News. The $75 million construction loan was arranged by Walker & Dunlop and funded by an affiliate of Apollo Global Management, per Westfair's reporting.
That financing is structured as a floating-rate, interest-only loan, which works out to roughly $1.18 million in debt for each of the 63 planned residences, the trade publication Capdex reported. Floating-rate interest-only loans are a common tool for preserving capital during commercial adaptive-reuse projects, per the outlet's reporting.
FEMA Flood Rules Forced a Costly Redesign
Getting to this point wasn't simple. The project's initial 2023 approval stalled after FEMA flagged that the existing structure did not comply with federal coastal flood standards, according to Multi-Housing News. In May 2026, developers reached an agreement with the Stamford Zoning Board to physically cut off the portion of the building that violated the flood zone rules, adding an estimated $3 million to $4 million in retrofitting costs, the outlet reported.
To cover those added expenses, developers won city approval to raise the residential unit count from 52 to 63 and agreed to contribute roughly $1.8 million to Stamford's Affordable Housing Trust Fund instead of building on-site affordable units, Multi-Housing News reported. Stamford allows developers to make these fee-in-lieu payments to support citywide affordable housing initiatives rather than requiring units within every project.
Street Elevation Plans Stir Local Debate
The site plan also calls for elevating adjacent Seaview Avenue by roughly 30 inches behind a five-foot retaining wall and building a vehicle turnaround. That work sparked municipal debate in mid-2026 over mature tree removals and park land jurisdiction at neighboring Cummings Park, as reported by the CT Examiner. City park commissioners and tree wardens reviewed whether the street widening and elevation changes encroached on municipal park property, according to the same report.
Guy Mazzola, CEO and senior managing partner at Sun Homes, said identifying 70 Seaview Ave. was driven by a vision to create a distinctive shoreline lifestyle opportunity, according to Westfair's reporting. The company described itself as creating a boutique waterfront residential community through adaptive reuse paired with an architectural approach from ODA of New York City, which was selected to lead The Caspian's design. Sun Homes has developed more than 10,000 homes and has over $2.6 billion in development value, per the same report.
Zachary Cion, managing director at Hudson Bay Capital, said the project reflects his firm's conviction in high-quality submarkets within commuting distance of New York City, Westfair reported. The Caspian will offer one-, two- and three-bedroom floor plans and townhomes with private rooftop terraces, and its sales gallery is anticipated to open in spring 2027.
Part of a Regional Office-to-Housing Wave
The Caspian is one piece of a much larger shift across Lower Fairfield County. More than 1.8 million square feet of office space in Stamford, Norwalk, Greenwich and Westport was removed from the market between mid-2024 and mid-2026 due to planned adaptive reuse projects, according to commercial real estate brokerage data reported by the Hartford Business Journal. A municipal appraisal analysis separately found Stamford's overall office vacancy rate at 21.7%, reinforcing local government interest in converting underutilized commercial buildings into housing.
Research from the Brookings Institution found that seven office-to-residential conversion projects proceeded in Stamford between 2020 and 2025 without major municipal cash subsidies, making the city something of a national case study for market-driven adaptive reuse. That track record sits alongside a hot local housing market: the average home price in Stamford's Shippan Point neighborhood reached $2.49 million in August 2026, up 5.8% from a year earlier, according to Redfin data.
