After 2½ years of being nothing more than a four-block hole in the ground, while the state and developers squabbled over plans and site remediation, it looks like the Front Street portion of the Adriaen’s Landing development on the south end of downtown Hartford might finally be moving forward. From the Courant:
More than two years after the state picked the HB Nitkin Group to develop the residential and entertainment district that is intended to link the Connecticut Convention Center with the rest of downtown, the developers presented their final designs Friday to the state.[...]
And, should it be built, what the $60 million project will look like is this — ground-floor retail space that begins on Columbus Boulevard and wraps around the corner to bring more retail to Front Street, a central, one-way street that bisects the site.
Above the 65,000 square feet of what the architects call high-ceilinged, “large, glassy shop fronts” will be a total of 115 studios, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom apartments at roughly 550, 750 and 1,200 square feet, respectively. Behind them will be internal courtyards.
Plans are for Front Street to be primarily a dining and entertainment district, to bolster the underutilized Connecticut Convention Center and the mostly empty downtown Marriott, with perhaps a few high-end retail stores geared to catering to business folks.
Considering Hartford’s colorful past of failed or half-done urban redevelopment projects, including the 2½ year delay on Front Street, it’s hard not to be skeptical or cynical towards the project. Admittedly, downtown Hartford isn’t quite the urban wasteland it was when I moved to the area 9 years ago…but giving people an additional reason to be downtown outside business hours would good.
However, considering the location (south end of downtown, near Travelers, but not much else), and the lack of success the Convention Center has had… I’m not holding my breath on success.
Also, I’ll mention my perrennial gripe about downtown Hartford’s projects—they focus too heavily on apartments! If the powers that be really want to turn downtown around, they need to give folks a reason to be downtown and have a stake in that area’s continued improvement. If some of the new residential development could be condos geared towards younger, up-and-coming professionals, it would probably be a good thing.
I know that before my wife’s accident, back when we both worked there, we definitely would have considered buying a condo downtown, if only there had been anything nice and not outrageously expensive available.