At Hartford’s Swift Factory, entrepreneurs find space to build businesses, achieve dreams, and it’s ‘just the beginning’

Growing up in Hartford, all Walter Little knew about the M. Swift & Sons factory in the city’s Northeast neighborhood was that it made gold leaf for the dome of the state Capitol.

But in the past year, Little has learned a lot more, like how a $34 million redevelopment of the vacant, rundown factory into incubator and entrepreneurial space has given Little a chance to build a thriving restaurant business, Chef Walt’s.

“It’s like a dream,” Little said, shaved beef and onions sizzling on the grill and a pot of jerk chicken bubbling nearby. “It gave me an opportunity that I wouldn’t have had, not having the best of credit, not having parents who could back me up.”

Chef Walt’s space was one of a dozen stops in the renovated former gold-leaf factory on a tour Friday by U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy.

The 80,000-square-foot hub of incubator and community space, houses mostly Black-owned and women-owned businesses.

There also are plans for a new, $5 million neighborhood branch of the Hartford Public Library and a branch of Chase Bank, expected to open next year, and space for Capitol Region Education Council’s Head Start programs.

For years, Little said he had worked to build a restaurant business in the neighborhood, first in a gas station on Albany Avenue, then in space at the American Legion and later at the Jerk Pit Cafe, both on Main Street.

Before coming to Swift, Little said he considered renting space that would have cost him $2,500 a month.

“It was a closet and needed a lot of work,” Little said. “It wasn’t a state-of-the-art, walk-in opportunity like this. This gives me the room to grow.”

Little said he sealed the lease at Swift with “$200 and handshake.” He’s now paying $1,700 a month with a business model built around curbside delivery for patrons. Little said he has already taken on more space and is considering adding even more.

He started with just two workers — himself and a dishwasher. A year later, he now employs six.

The incubator space also is occupied by, among others, the Hartford Plant Co., a grower of microgreens; and Bloom Bake Shop, a bakery that soon plans to move to a larger storefront downtown later this year.

Friday’s upbeat mood for the tour was years in the making, however. The Swift factory — its gold-leafing business once of national renown — closed in 2005 and was donated in 2010 to Community Solutions, a high-profile nonprofit dedicated to strengthening neighborhoods.

Construction didn’t start for eight years as Community Solutions built bridges with area residents skeptical that the redevelopment would help reverse decades of deterioration and disinvestment in the neighborhood.

There were other setbacks along the way, including Bear’s Smokehouse pulling out as an anchor tenant.

The nonprofit also had to find the right tenants and sign leases to secure a patchwork of federal, state and local funding. A big boost came when the neighborhood became part of Hartford’s “Promise Zone.”

Rosanne Haggerty, a West Hartford native and president of Community Solutions, said Friday after the tour that there must be a better way “than slogging it out for eight years with many different funding sources.”

Haggerty credited the neighborhood with the initial vision for Swift as a place that could provide a platform for creating jobs for local residents.

Workforce development will be a key component of the library branch. The branch will replace one on nearby Barbour Street and be more than seven times larger, at 15,000 square feet.

“With some imagination, a building that has served one purpose for over 100 years could still become the economic anchor,” Haggerty said. “But it wasn’t going to be the sole employer model anymore, the economy has shifted. The building has just surfaced so much entrepreneurial energy that existed in the community.”

Both Blumenthal and Murphy praised the redevelopment of the factory and its potential to inspire similar future projects. They pledged to keep seeking federal funding to support the effort.

“This is tremendously impressive,” Murphy said after the tour. “We’re excited to help find federal funding. It obviously couldn’t happen without federal funding, but it really couldn’t happen without all of you.”

Neighborhood leaders who attended Friday’s tour endorsed the project as having the potential to spark further transformation in the neighborhood.

“This is the anchor, this is just the beginning,” Helen Nixon, co-chair of the Northeast Neighborhood neighborhood revitalization zone, said. “I am looking forward to everything that’s happening here to be spread out all over, especially the Northeast neighborhood.”

Kenneth R. Gosselin can be reached at kgosselin@courant.com