Seven CT development projects to watch in 2024. And why they matter to the region.
Hartford is shaking off a bruising setback dealt by the pandemic, with momentum behind revitalization again picking up speed — some going so far as to say it is now poised to surpass levels prior to COVID-19.
As the city heads into 2024, downtown apartment conversions near Bushnell Park, at 55 Elm St. — the former offices of the state’s Constitutional officers — and the firehouse on Pearl Street are expected to begin renting in the year ahead. Tenant demand remains strong in and around downtown.
In the neighborhoods, long anticipated projects will now push forward. They include the apartment conversion of two buildings at the former Fuller Brush factory in the Northeast neighborhood and the development of a long-vacant city parcel at the corner of Albany Avenue and Woodland Street in Upper Albany.
The city’s Hart Lift storefront revitalization program, matching grants funded with pandemic relief aid, sparking new retail life — restaurants, bars and shops — throughout Hartford. In particular, downtown’s brick-lined Pratt Street — with its historic architecture, is seeing more foot traffic than it has in years.
“As I look at what is going on, I just see Hartford in a position where the momentum that we feared would be lost from the pandemic is more than back,” said David Griggs, chief executive of the MetroHartford Alliance, the region’s chamber of commerce.
But Griggs and others say the pandemic still casts a long shadow that could be felt in the city for months, even years.
“The issue, at best, bubbling subsurface or really on the surface, is probably going to reach a boiling point, and that is the commercial leasing issue,” Michael W. Freimuth, executive director of the Capital Region Development Authority, said.
‘Going to accelerate’
The shift to working more from home is creating major headaches for the owners of Hartford office towers, with major tenants downsizing leases. The employees of those companies may be only working part-time in the office, if at all.
Some employers are spending millions to reshape their office environments to make them more like home, in an attempt to lure workers back to the office.
Freimuth said he foresees office occupancies, rents and building values growing as a concern — and raising the question of what should be done with some office buildings, especially smaller, older ones in the city.
“I do think it is going to accelerate this year,” said Freimuth, whose quasi-public agency finances funding gaps in redevelopment projects.
The health of an office market has long been a key economic indicator. Building values can affect everything from deals landlords can offer prospective tenants to the property taxes that are paid to the city, which can have a broad ripple effect on paying for city services.
In 2023, high interest rates — combined with rising construction costs — made it tough to close financing on redevelopment deals. The Fuller Brush project, which will create 155 apartments, all but five of them with market-rate rents — was at the financing table for a year, Freimuth said,
Freimuth said there are hopes borrowing costs will ease in 2024, with the Federal Reserve indicating the possibility of cuts in short-term interest rates that affect mortgage costs. But that will still leave the thorny issue of what to do with excess office space.
Roadrunner or coyote?
In downtown Hartford, one of the older office buildings could be 242 Trumbull St., at the corner of Trumbull and Pratt Street. The 8-story structure was purchased in June by Brooklyn, N.Y-based Shelbourne Global Solutions LLC as a major tenant, the Day Pitney law firm relocated elsewhere in downtown.
The office building has been targeted for apartment conversion, but could also be a mix of residential and commercial space, Freimuth said.
Concerns about idle office space in Hartford could shift more emphasis back to converting existing space to apartments, as it was a decade ago.
That could push back the timetable on massive redevelopments such as Bushnell South, a planned, mixed-use project of new construction on a sea of parking lots near the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, Freimuth said.
Griggs said a solution has to be found for rising office vacancies in Hartford. The choice is pretty-clear cut, Griggs said. It is either the roadrunner cartoon character who eludes the falling anvil or the coyote who always get hit by it.
“Look, we know it’s an issue, and we have to solve it,” Griggs said. “While at the same time, we have to keep our foot on the gas of retail development downtown, restaurant development downtown — the fact that Hartford is becoming what it really should be, which is a regional destination.”
One of the city’s biggest developers, Randy Salvatore of Stamford-based RMS Cos., said his view of Hartford’s prospects has not changed, despite the pandemic and a legal dispute — now resolved — that held up the next phase of North Crossing. North Crossing is the apartment development around Dunkin’ Park, the city’s minor league ballpark.
Salvatore owns Hartford’s Goodwin Hotel and is converting the top floors of downtown’s Hilton Hartford into apartments. Recently, Salvatore also purchased the former, 13-acre campus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute adjacent to North Crossing for a future mixed-use redevelopment.
“I have never been more bullish on the city of Hartford,” Salvatore said, at a Dec. 22 groundbreaking for the next phase of North Crossing. “I would not continue to make these types of investments if I was not confident in (the city’s) future.”
Here are 7 redevelopment projects in Hartford to watch in 2024:
XL Center
Neighborhood: Downtown
Cost: $107 million
Developer: State of Connecticut
Completion: To be determined
What to watch: A major upgrade to the lower half of the XL Center arena could start early next year if bids for the work confirm that cost estimates are valid. The venue’s operator, Los Angeles-based Oak View Group, must commit at least $20 million to the project. The investment was required by the General Assembly as a condition of the public-private partnership between the state and OVG on the planned renovations.
Why it matters: Major renovations are seen as crucial to the nearly 50-year-old arena keeping up with more modern venues. The investment by OVG, critical to the renovation, would boost the XL’s competitive muscle for attracting big-name concerts and sports tournaments. Supporters say more of those bookings would benefit economically both the city and the region.
Hilton Hartford
Neighborhood: Downtown
Cost: $29 million
Developer: RMS Cos./Waterford Group
Completion: Late winter, possibly March
What to watch: The top floors of the 22-story former hotel are being converted to 147 apartments in an $18 million project. The lower floors will remain guest rooms and are undergoing an $11 million renovation and will be rebranded as a DoubleTree hotel.
Why it matters: The Hilton Hartford, next to the XL Center, came perilously near closing in the pandemic. A rescue plan, partly financed with public funds, is preserving some of the guest rooms that will be needed to attract future conventions and sports tournaments. The top floors would add to the inventory of downtown apartments.
Albany/Woodland
Neighborhood: Upper Albany
Cost: $19 million
Developer: National Development Council/Grow America
Completion: Late 2025
What to watch: Construction on city-owned land at the corner of Albany Avenue and Woodland Street in Hartford’s North End is expected to begin in the spring. Plans call for a sit-down restaurant, a much-needed bank branch, additional storefront space and new quarters for a relocated city health department and WIC offices. Financing includes low-cost loans from state and city.
Why it matters: A development at this location — contemplated for nearly two decades — may finally come to fruition. The sit-down restaurant, long sought in a neighborhood dominated by take-out food, would help begin establishing Albany Avenue as a destination, rather than a pass through between the suburbs and downtown.
Martin Luther King Apartments
Neighborhood: Sheldon/Charter Oak
Cost: $65 million
Developer: Sheldon Oak Central, Inc./Vesta Corp.
Completion: Late summer, 2025
What to watch: The redevelopment of this rundown, 1960s-era public housing complex near downtown is expected to finally start early next year, after five years of planning, relocating tenants and rising costs linked to the pandemic. The project has changed significantly from the outset and is now entirely focused on affordable apartments requiring tenants to meet certain guidelines.
Demolition of the existing structures is expected to begin later this winter.
Why it matters: A redeveloped MLK complex will provide much-needed affordable housing options in the city, as rents continue to rise, pricing out some tenants. The design will be the same — garden-style and townhouse apartments arranged around a central green — as it was when market-rate units were part of the project.
The redevelopment is seen as the last major piece of a revitalization plan from the 1990s in the Sheldon/Charter Oak neighborhood.
Arrowhead Gateway
Neighborhood: Downtown
Cost: $19 million
Developer: Carabetta Enterprises
Completion: To be determined
What to watch: The long-anticipated project includes the renovation of three historic buildings and a construction of a new one. The redevelopment, including public financing, will create 45 mixed-income apartments over storefront space, all opening to a new pedestrian plaza.
Why it matters: This redevelopment is seen as pivotal for reconnecting Hartford’s downtown to the city’s northside neighborhoods. The connection has been disrupted for decades ever since the construction of the interstate highways in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Although Arrowhead Gateway is separate, it would build on the nearby North Crossing area, which includes Dunkin’ Park, the city’s minor league ballpark.
Pearl Street firehouse
Neighborhood: Downtown
Cost: $9.5 million
Developer: Spectra Construction and Development Corp. and its partners
Completion: 2024
What to watch: Spectra is pursuing two apartment conversions simultaneously in historic structures downtown. The conversion of the firehouse, once the fire headquarters for city, will add 35 rentals on the upper floors and a restaurant on the ground level. At the same time, Spectra is creating 42 apartments at a former municipal office building across from city hall. In addition, the developer plans a new apartment building to the rear of the former city offices on Wells Street facing Bushnell Park.
Why it matters: The Pearl Street firehouse had stood vacant for several years and will provide apartments — a new pizzeria in former fire truck bays — a short walk from Bushnell Park. The redevelopment of the firehouse also could be the impetus for the redevelopment of neighboring YMCA. The YMCA tower has been vacant since 2008 with plans for two new uses not coming to fruition. The YMCA building has separate ownership.
North Crossing, Phase 2A
Neighborhood: Downtown
Cost: $58 million
Developer: RMS Cos.
Completion: Late summer, 2025
What to watch: The city’s recent settlement with the first developers of Dunkin’ Park cleared the way for the second phase of development around the ballpark. A week ago, a groundbreaking marked the ceremonial start of work on 227 apartments, storefront space and a parking garage across Main Street from the stadium. Construction, which is expected to start in earnest later this winter, will focus on about half of the 527 rentals eventually planned for the second phase.
Why it matters: North Crossing, the former Downtown North, or DoNo, is aimed at redeveloping a jumble of parking lots just north of downtown. The area was once a part of downtown but was cut off by the construction of the interstate highways. North Crossing is intended to bring the two areas back together again. Tax revenue from redevelopment in this area was part of the plan to pay for the city-financed ballpark.
The first phase of apartments, known as The Pennant, is 95% leased.
Kenneth R. Gosselin can be reached at kgosselin@courant.com
