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Putting a Face on Adriaen's
As ground is broken on Hartford's mega-project, major questions remain
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CONNTACT.com
10/28/2002
By: BNH
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Farmington attorney R. Bartley Halloran is chairman of Hartford's Capital City Economic Development Authority. He is overseeing the $500 million Adriaen's Landing project. Ground was broken for the project on October 16.
What is Adriaen's Landing?
It's a portion of the redevelopment effort in Hartford grown out of a study done five years ago that identified six specific projects to complete to bring Hartford back. The Adriaen's Landing portion is a convention center, a hotel, a retail and housing district and some kind of attraction such as a science center. It's a portion of the overall plan.
What is the timetable on other parts of the plan?
We built a parking garage for 3,200 cars behind the old G. Fox building. That's been open for about eight months and is doing very well. One of the pillars to this project was parking. The second was to move the [Capital] community college downtown into the renovated G. Fox building. That opened this September.
How does housing fit into the plan?
We have renovated neighborhood housing and there have been a couple of completed projects. The most significant one is Morston and Putnam Heights, in which two streets have been redone completely. We've also boarded up, and in some cases torn down, neglected housing and we've cleaned up several hundred lots at this point.
What projects are still in the works?
We have a housing project on Lewis Street that we should have a groundbreaking for in the next two weeks. Lewis Street is an old historic street. There are a couple hundred units of housing being put in there. At the Civic Center, we have approved some of the earlier plans for that. We are still in the architectural part of that. It'll be a complete renovation of the building around the coliseum in downtown Hartford. It will be some retail and a housing tower.
Where does the money come from?
There are public and private funds. The public funds have come through bonding money and that was approved after the final plans were approved. Most of the public money is going into the convention center that will be owned by the state. There is private money going into the Marriott Hotel that is being built. That's about $70 million. There's also private money with some public money going into the development of the retail housing complex that [developer] Richard Cohen is doing across the street from Adriaen's Landing.
Hartford has traditionally had problems with retail and fancy shops such as those at the Civic Center and the Pavilion, both of which failed. Why will Adriaen's Landing be different?
It's a far different concept. The Civic Center was a very much enclosed mall. It was almost like a fortress and to a certain degree, New Haven had the same thing: they built these things in the ë60s that were very, very uninviting to the street. The whole concept of Adriaen's Landing and the things we're doing is to connect everything together. So we're connecting it with Constitution Plaza. Everything from the G. Fox building all the way down to the Colt Building would flow together.
The reason we believe it will work is, first of all, the convention center will draw in a lot of people. Secondly, we are building housing in the same area where we're building the retail. Some of the retail will be used to support the housing, things that the people who are going to live there will need. You don't have that in downtown Hartford now. By the time we're finished with housing, we'll have constructed 600 subsidized units and another couple hundred that we don't have anything to do with. That's quite a few new people living in the area. It should help the retail.
Convention centers are popping up throughout southern New England. Providence has a new one, New Haven is toying with a conference center, Mohegan Sun just opened a large facility. Is there need for one more?
Providence built theirs and connected it to a hotel and they had a rough first year, mainly because of poor planning. Since then they have done extremely well. Between Boston and New York, there really isn't another conference center. Providence is it in that area. Our facility will be quite a bit bigger than Providence's. We've hired a very skilled architectural team that did the convention center in Philadelphia and technologically, ours will be far superior than anyone else's. Hartford has been thinking of this since the 1970s, but we haven't had the political will to get it done. There is a logical reason to put it here. There is the intersection of Interstates 84 and 91 and you have an enormous amount of traffic. We're not going to get the conventions that you'll get in New York City or Los Angeles, but there is a lot that we can get. All the studies suggest this will work and the proof is in the pudding. We've got a lot of things going for us. We've got population, a very new facility and location is excellent.
Do you expect competition from Mohegan Sun's convention center?
They have a big convention center, but it's a different facility than we have. There will be competition, but I think in a lot of ways Mohegan Sun will help us because it's a great side trip. There are an awful lot of conventions that cannot be held at a gambling facility. I've been going to the trial lawyers conventions for years and you just simply could not have that at a casino. There is plenty of room for both.
Hotels have become very difficult to finance. Have there been problems financing the Marriott?
No. We're going to be completed in the next two or three weeks. We're just waiting for the final approval.
Is the children's science museum still part of the plan?
What has happened with that is it's an enormous project. That's another thing that Hartford's been trying to do since the ë70s. We did the preliminary work to see what would be the best thing that we could build for the community. The emphasis of that is more community-based than tourism-based. The idea is that you have an enormous amount of school kids using a place like that. In the next couple of weeks we have a meeting set up for a task force of educators and business leaders that we will pass the ball over to. It's really not a seeded type of project. It's broad and you need the community to be behind it to make it work. That will transfer out of our control over the next month or so. All the studies suggest it's feasible and can be built. It needs leadership and money too.
Who is at risk if this whole project flops?
It will be quite a disappointment for the Wolmans or Richard Cohen [project developers]! I would say if the project doesn't go, it's a tremendous blow to all of Hartford. I don't see how that can happen, because the bonding is already approved for the convention center and the financing is all but approved for the hotel. We've gone so far at this point, it would make no sense to go back. We've spent $65 million preparing the site, so it would be insane to stop now. It will never be a total failure, but what could happen is if there's not the political will to support by being aggressive with tourism. Like anything else, you can make things fail if you don't have proper funding for tourism or if you don't properly fund a convention center.
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