Saffan and his partner in the venture, veteran concert promoter Jim Koplik of Live Nation, were on hand at the amphitheater with other officials Tuesday to celebrate another milestone in their joint venture: The announcement that Hartford HealthCare, which in 2019 acquired Bridgeport-based St. Vincent’s Medical Center, had purchased the naming rights to the amphitheater. Saffan said he intends to host graduations come May. He hopes that by summer, enough of Connecticut’s population will be vaccinated against COVID-19 and the infection rate will be so low that state officials will allow him to fill the amphitheater’s entire 5,700 seats at a single event. And because the attraction needs plenty of lead time to book acts and sell tickets, Saffan said the state “need(s) to make a commitment that says, ideally, come June 1, you can go 100 percent to concerts,” he said. “There’s no reason not to.” When Saffan first approached the city in 2017 with Koplik about transforming the Bridgeport-owned ballpark into a live music venue, the partnership had hoped to open in 2019. But construction delays, then the pandemic, pushed that off two years. The original price tag was $15 million, split between the developers and Mayor Joe Ganim’s administration. Then last year, Saffan sought and received another $4.5 million from Bridgeport, arguing the two-decade old ballpark was in poorer shape than he had been told and that the developers invested far more than their initial share.
https://www.ctinsider.com/news/ctpost/article/Developers-hope-Bridgeport-s-newly-named-15973980.php?cmpid=gsa-ctpost-result&_ga=2.15724223.822857378.1613993156-2079383654.1604661679&_gac=1.121541754.1614165111.Cj0KCQiAj9iBBhCJARIsAE9qRtB6C5CP170JyfdMsJWR-nEOPqp5gX1IifVhJlESh9DJagG8E-tEXhAaAveHEALw_wcB