A press release from Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez’s office invites “corporate, business, sport, and government leaders” to come to a midday roundtable discussion tomorrow focused on a recently-released and, likely, heavily-biased HOK Sport arena feasibility study (PDF) commissioned by the city.

The roundtable will take place Thursday, February 21, at noon; the location is not specified in the release. “Business owners” who would like to attend may find out where the event is taking place, and RSVP, by contacting Mac Perkins at mperkins [at] ofalaw.com, the release states.

Perez is attempting to “gauge support and economic impact” of potential arena plans on the city, region and state, including the effect of HOK’s recommended new construction as well as how small businesses may be impacted.

New York City-based architect Paul Sheehan, commenting on a previous post regarding the feasibility study, said, “The current civic center is fairly large, on an adequately large parcel, and if the proper parties were determined enough, an upgrade could be made to satisfy most needs.”

“What a ridiculous scam these stadium building cartels run,” Sheehan added. “Although it’s certainly not ridiculous when you look at the profits they reap from their successful bamboozling of all these communities. Here’s a vote for ‘enhancement.’ Not only do you save a lot of money, but it’s a ‘greener’ decision, too. And a quick read [of HOK's study] does little to diminish the impression that it’s all intended to convince Hartford it needs a new arena—even though, barring a new NHL team, it doesn’t really need increased capacity.”

My first visit to the XL Center was earlier this month, when presidential candidate and Illinois Senator Barack Obama came to town and filled the place to capacity.

While navigating by car and finding a place to park conveniently were slight challenges, the event went remarkably smoothly; a report the following day in the Courant noted that just 100 people were turned away at the door, in the warm lobby, once the fire marshal determined a limit had to be set for safety reasons.

In a follow-up column in the Greater Hartford News (not available online), Mike McGarry opined that city officials missed out on an opportunity to inform the public about how simple it would be to reach downtown on a bus for this event, and save themselves the trouble of the traffic headaches and any potential parking woes.

He wrote that many savvy attendees knew to take a city bus (Route E, pictured below; click to see larger) that runs, from points west, along Farmington Avenue and straight into downtown with a stop right at the XL Center. McGarry wondered why officials didn’t try to encourage that kind of “feet on the street” strategy—apparently one of the city’s economic development goals—for such a hugely popular event as Obama’s Hartford visit.

Even so, with the streets of downtown teeming with people looking to get a seat, and with adjacent Ann Street closed down (pictured below), and with many visitors (including myself) probably unaware of the ease of public transportation to get there, the venue worked successfully.

Maybe that wouldn’t be the case if the city were host to an NHL team, as Sheehan noted, but an arena capacity of 16,000 to 17,000 is a pretty large container to fill as it is. Criticism of the existing XL Center is that it needs updates.

Are updates all that is required to bring people back downtown, flocking to street-level retail? An active, welcoming, modern façade, as opposed to an extended blank wall (among other possible updates), is not the only key ingredient. Better promotion and use of existing public transportation can also help.

The Urban Land Institute recommended implementing changes to the current arena structure rather than starting over from scratch, including “right-sizing, reconfiguring and modernizing” the building. It’s not immediately clear what “right-sizing” means, but perhaps the building’s footprint is too leggy and wastes valuable downtown real estate. For example, maybe a few street-level retail shops could fit in on Ann Street, where sprawling exit stairs take up a lot of square footage, if the stairs were reconfigured.

The panel’s main criticism about a new arena was that it can’t easily be financed, if at all, adding that it can be very hard to predict success with such large-scale projects, and such endeavors are even more difficult to analyze. Instead, the panel said, the city’s goals can be met in other ways.

The panel noted the city’s desire to support strategies to enhance economic development, presumably with a focus on small business success, including this “feet on the street” idea: in other words, get more people out of their cars, walking, so they can enter businesses and spend their money on things they want or need. More pedestrians also equals a greater sense of public safety and overall vitality. It’s more fun to be downtown when more people are out. When people are having fun, they’re more likely to spend their money and want to linger a bit more in order to do that. Increasing pedestrian activity is a good goal to work toward.

A new arena is not necessary to work toward that goal, the panel underlined. Instead, the city should set forth a policy decision. In order to work toward certain economic development goals, an arena such as the XL Center ought to be multipurpose, attracting a variety of events and performances. Sports ought to be a component of what can attract people downtown, but so can other types of events, the panel seemed to indicate; can the operators of the arena think strategically about what attracts us? (Maybe we would be attracted by more large-scale political events, for example, given what we saw on February 4.)

We could also use more retail that works at the street level for people coming to seek out ways to meet their needs when they’re visiting downtown—basic food, warmth, and other amenities.

Dunkin Donuts on Trumbull Street, across from the XL Center’s main entrance, did a booming business on the afternoon of Obama’s visit while people waited in line for one or two hours trying to stave off the cold. As for booming business at the credit union and boot and shoe store during an event like this: not so much.

After the event, people emerged from the center looking for dinner. A cold, steady rain was falling from the sky; the sun had set, and after the warmth and exuberance of the Obama rally, attendees were looking for a new place to gather, eat and come down from the exciting civic experience of it all.

Two restaurants I attempted to patronize as a customer told me the wait for a table would be either 60 or 90 minutes—and there was nowhere to go to wait. Children were with me, so a bar wasn’t going to work even if there were several to choose from. We ended up driving home to eat, not wanting to wander the dark streets of downtown guessing at where the family-friendly locations might be, if there were any beyond the two restaurants we tried.

At Mayor Mike’s, I was told, “Sorry.” Hey, it’s not their fault if it’s hard to find restaurants at night closer to the Ann Street side of the arena. Most eateries surrounding the XL Center were probably very busy serving dinner after the event concluded: good for them. I overheard plenty of people wandering around near me, equally concerned about filling their bellies and unsure where to go.

The effort being exerted to examine the HOK new arena feasibility study is, in light of the ULI panel’s suggestions, a waste of time. Instead, the city should be looking at how to reconfigure what exists, and lending a boost to the surroundings, in order to meet the very same goals.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 at 10:35 am and is filed under City corridors, Demographics, Development, Downtown, Finance, Hartford, Photos, Planning and design, Public spaces, Quality of life, Studies and reports, Urban Compass, Urban design, Walkability.