Image courtesy of Google Maps

A huge swath of woodland straddling the Bridgeport-Stratford line that’s long been littered with explosives could become a huge new park, thanks to a renewable energy development.

The 419-acre Lake Success property was once the testing grounds for Remington Arms, whose huge factory once dominated Bridgeport and employed thousands. The weapons-maker left tons of explosives and other contaminants across the site when it stopped using it in 1989 after over 80 years, and it’s sat vacant since.

Now owned by Sporting Goods Properties Inc., a subsidiary of one of Remington’s successor companies, the property that’s been variously mooted for uses like a business park or housing is poised to become a public park centered on a 23-acre lake.

Sporting Goods Properties has been decontaminating the site for years, now, but until recently, the vision of turning the land into a park has seemed far off.

A new plan reported by CT Insider Monday would see the Lake Success property split in two: around 50 acres would be broken off from the site and turned into the Lake Success Energy Park. That project would include a 15-acre solar array and a huge, utility-scale battery installation of the kind needed to manage the influx of renewable energy into the Connecticut electrical grid. The energy installations are being enabled by a United Illuminating power line that crosses the site.

East Granby-based Kinsley Group would develop the energy facility.

The remaining 365 acres would be given to a nonprofit, Nature for All, and turned into a public park with around 90 acres of the park open daily with the rest set up as a nature reserve and only open to humans on special occasions.