Billionaire Austin McChord wins approval for $410 million Connecticut park

American technology entrepreneur Austin McChord and his wife, Allison, won a key approval for their $410 million plan to turn a shuttered coal- and oil-fired power plant in Norwalk, Connecticut, into a 125-acre public park and nature center.

The Norwalk Planning and Zoning Commission voted unanimously on Wednesday to create a special zoning district for the project, called Manresa Wilds. The decision sets the master plan for the site and lets the couple refine their designs for later phases, each of which must come back to the commission as a separate application with its own traffic study.

The McChords are paying for the work through Manresa Island Corp., a charity they set up to take charge of the site's cleanup. The $410 million is their initial estimate for buying the land, removing contamination, building roads and utilities, and restoring the shoreline. Backers say it will be the largest privately funded environmental cleanup and public park project in Connecticut history.

"We founded Manresa Island Corp. to take responsibility for this site's cleanup," the couple said in a statement after the vote, adding that it "brings us one step closer to unlocking a remarkable stretch of Norwalk's waterfront to the public again."

From power plant to park

The site, on a peninsula in Norwalk Harbor on Long Island Sound, held the Norwalk Harbor Generating Station, a plant run over the years by Connecticut Light & Power and later NRG. It burned coal and oil for more than five decades and shut in 2013 after flood damage from Hurricane Sandy. The shoreline has been closed to the public for nearly 75 years, and 102 of the property's 125 acres sit on coal ash fill.

Connecticut's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection issued the charity a stewardship permit on Dec. 31, 2025, which sets out the investigation and cleanup the site needs before it can reopen. Crews have already removed three large oil tanks from the property.

The first phase, a 28-acre stretch of trails, meadows and outdoor classrooms called the Northern Forest, was approved earlier under the site's old residential zoning. It is under construction and due to open in 2027. The second phase, targeted for 2032, would turn the plant's turbine hall and administration building into event space, a cafe and a restaurant, and add a community pool, wetland restoration and play areas. A waterfront promenade and pier would follow, along with plans for the old boiler building and an ecology center. The couple expects the full park to be open by 2035.

The design is by Bjarke Ingels Group, the Danish architecture firm. The McChords dropped plans for a hotel and cut back outdoor lighting after public hearings, and said they received more than 4,000 comments on the design.

Limits on crowds and parking

Neighbors pushed back over traffic and noise. More than 200 residents signed a petition asking the commission to reject the special district and demand a smaller plan. The approved rules allow no more than four events a month drawing 151 to 400 guests and no more than four a year above that size. Public parking is capped at 200 on-site spaces, booked through a reservation system. The state Office of State Traffic Administration is also expected to review the project.

"I'm still a little bit uncomfortable with the numbers," Commissioner Louis Schulman said during deliberations. Commissioner Harvey Jones said that if the panel "took no further action on this application ever, nothing would ever get built."

Jan Schaefer, president of the Manresa Association, a neighborhood group, said traffic "remains a big concern" and that she hopes the city will deal with it when later phases come up for review.

The Datto founder

McChord, 41, grew up in nearby Newtown and started Datto, a maker of data backup and recovery systems for small businesses, in 2007 while still a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He sold the company to private equity firm Vista Equity Partners in 2017 and stepped down as chief executive in 2019. Kaseya, the IT management software company, bought Datto for $6.2 billion in 2022.

The couple bought the Manresa property after a New York developer had planned luxury homes there. They had spent about $45 million on the land and planning by early this year. Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont has backed the project and called it "an innovative example of Connecticut at its best."