Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim joined city officials to give contractors a tour Wednesday of the Remington Arms Shot Tower to help decide what's next for the abandoned site.

The site is owned by the city and contains other large industrial buildings.

The goal for the city is to clean up the site so that developers and contractors are attracted to do business.

Ganim says broken windows are a poor look for Bridgeport, so he is focusing on what the building can become.

"Opportunities for either commercial up on some of those higher floors, or residential," Ganim said.

Bridgeport recently posted a public bid to prepare the site for future development.

Bill Coleman, of the Bridgeport Office of Planning and Economic Development, says the first step is to stabilize the abandoned shot tower structure.

"We're going to fix some of the weak spots of the building, patch the roof, remove some of those vacant cell towers that are still there kind of marring the appearance of the shot tower and really highlight this building for the historic asset that it is. And from there, we're going to look at the balance of the site and clear it and get it ready for redevelopment," Coleman says.

The next step will be improving security.

Bridgeport City Councilman Ernie Newton says cleaning up the historic tower is a proactive step for the future.

"I believe that we can, you know, start this phase, move forward, so we can clean up these eyesores, so we can develop it into some new jobs and some opportunities," Newton says.