Living in Shelton, Connecticut Knowing How to Change With the Times

SHELTON, cupped into a valley at Fairfield County’s easternmost edge, 68 miles from Midtown Manhattan, has a distinct knack for reinventing itself.

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After the Civil War, a dam built across the Housatonic River transformed a sleepy farming hamlet into an industrial powerhouse breathlessly churning out bed frames, carriage wheels, boxes, silverware and baskets.

After World War II, what remained of the early farms gave way to master-planned developments, as a bedroom community sprouted for cities like Bridgeport.

Even a large landfill along Route 110, capped a few years back, is now a steep grassy slope where deer graze at dusk.

Encompassing 31.9 square miles, Shelton has been working to transform the empty brick factories in its downtown into a mixed-use community of apartments, offices and shops.

In 2005, it rezoned 14.5 acres along Canal Street (named for a now-reed-filled channel that funneled dam water to turbines). There, John Guedes, a developer, has started what is expected to be a 4 million 10-building project with 600 units and 80,000 square feet for commercial use.

Birmingham on the River, the first piece, has 103 condominiums, from 900-square-foot one-bedrooms to 1,580-square-foot three-bedrooms, in a former corset factory. The units range from about 0,000 to 0,000, and 73 percent have sold, said John LaBella, the agent handling sales.

Next up, Mr. LaBella said, will be Radcliffe Park, a three-building 256-unit condo approved for the rubble-strewn site of a onetime asphalt factory; it breaks ground this summer.

Mr. LaBella acknowledged that the market was softening, yet predicted that demand would pick up by the Radcliffe’s completion date in a couple of years. “And when you come out of a trough,” he said, “the real estate is usually higher than when you went in.”

Increasing the property rolls to keep taxes low is one priority for Shelton, which has a population of 40,000. But new residents could also strain schools, which are already at or above capacity.

In 2004, for example, one of Henry Davidson’s daughters had to be bused across Shelton for kindergarten, even though the family lived a half-mile from an elementary school.

“If we bring in a large number of new people,” said Mr. Davidson, a computer programmer in Darien, “we will get right back into the same problem.”

Still, he and his wife, Kim, don’t regret relocating to Shelton from East Norwalk. The move allowed him to double his square footage and triple his land. His two-story 1980s colonial on a three-quarter-acre lot has three bedrooms, two baths and 3,000 square feet; it cost 9,000 in 2003, though it required ,000 in renovations, including a new roof, windows and doors, he said.

The changes in Shelton evoke nostalgia in Guy Rogliano, a 24-year resident who works as an executive recruiter. He misses the cows that used to graze on land next door.

His raised ranch, with three bedrooms, two baths and 3,400 square feet, courtesy of an addition in the 1990s, cost 2,000 in 1983 but could fetch 0,000 “in a good market,” Mr. Rogliano said.

He does, however, acknowledge that Shelton’s downtown, with its pawn shop, tattoo parlor and Mr. Butts Cigars, is overdue for revitalization. “It’s difficult for us,” he said, “because we’re trying to balance our old way of life with the inevitable flow of development.”

WHAT YOU’LL FIND

Shelton, shaped like an arrowhead, has three sections — whose names residents use even though city leaders have called them divisive.

Pine Rock Park, named after a short-lived amusement park, has mostly ranches on tiny lots.

White Hills, the city’s most rural landscape, where there are still fields of strawberries, is bordered by Walnut Tree Hill Road, which twists past Greek Revivals and gnarled oaks. Late-20th-century homes, like most of Shelton’s stock, line streets radiating off of it, like the aptly named Suburban Drive.

Self-contained Huntington, huddled around historic churches, saltbox Colonials and soup-to-nuts strip malls, is the city’s most upscale section. The “berry” cluster — with Bayberry, Strawberry and Elderberry Lanes — has large set-back contemporaries with lopsided dormers.