Members of an Urban Land Institute national panel visited Hartford all last week, immersing themselves in a compiled briefing book about the city, taking a citywide tour by van and a focused downtown tour on foot, and interviewing 90 various stakeholders, before going behind closed doors to sort out fact from fiction, coming up with actionable economic development recommendations at the request of the city.

On Friday morning, the panel offered a presentation summarizing those recommendations at the Wadsworth Atheneum (pictured above and below) on Main Street downtown.

As the small audience of interested stakeholders evidently waited for Mayor Eddie Perez to arrive, Jeff Vose (picured) of the co-sponsoring MetroHartford Alliance took a moment to explain what the panel was in town to accomplish.

“We were finishing up the Hartford 2010 study,” he said. “We were getting into the implementation phase, and we had this broad brush of where we were going with the tridents and everything. We looked at which tridents [pictured] had the most potential. In terms of development potential, it was the downtown north trident.”

The Hartford 2010 report (PDF) describes tridents as the convergence of radial arterials pointing toward downtown Hartford. “They connect Hartford to the region,” the report asserts. “These arterials…still function as major gateways to downtown.”

The downtown north trident (pictured below), an area the ULI later termed in its presentation North Park, is “a rather large land mass,” Vose explained, so planners were concerned with the best way to approach its development.

“At roughly the same time,” Vose continued, “we were trying to build the ULI membership representation in the Hartford area. Urban Land is the cream of the crop [think tank] when it comes to land use and planning.” In the process of talking with ULI representatives, Vose said, officials became aware of the national advisory services process. “We knew that Bridgeport had done a similar panel, so we started looking into that, and we said, geez, this would be ideal, to bring in some outsiders to take a fresh look at this on a large scale.”

Along with the downtown north area, the panel examined the potential of an area termed downtown west. Of the Hartford 2010 project, Vose said, “We need to make sure that we’re not creating these projects, and creating these little pods, without giving some thought as to how they’re going to connect to the other parts of the city.”

Panelists arrived Sunday night, Vose said, and engaged in a meeting with officials from the city and the MetroHartford Alliance. “It was a get-to-know-each other-dinner,” he said, where panelists reviewed the assignment and questions to address. (See the questions at the very bottom of the post.)

“One of the big things is, how do we attract private investment to the area?” he said. “We had prepared, a couple of months before the panel came here, a briefing book, which is probably about six inches thick, on different aspects of the city. Monday morning, we met with [the panel], reviewed the briefing book, and then we took a tour of the city. We actually walked the study area itself, came back and had a working lunch, reviewed things, and then we had about 90 interviews set up for Tuesday, in the areas of market potential, planning and design, and development strategies and implementation.”

Just as Vose finished his sentence, the audience hushed as Mayor Perez made an entrance, and we saw that the panelists had all taken their seats at a long table on stage. Taking the podium, Perez welcomed everyone to the presentation. “I’m on mayor’s time, so I thank everybody for being patient,” he began. “It is a good morning for the city of Hartford. Today the Urban Land Institute will announce its findings for Hartford.”

“We asked them to look at two specific challenges that the Alliance and the city have been talking about—really an outgrowth of our 2010 plan that a lot of you were a participant in, and we’ve asked them to look at downtown north and downtown west as the first area that we would like to consider for implementation.” The city offered the panel as much information as it could, Perez continued, knowing that the challenge is formidable. “They’ve looked at studies, and undertook a number of interviews, in order to look at what might be possible here, and [we're] very happy with the work they’ve done.”

Perez then welcomed the panel chair, Memphis-based architect and urban designer Ray Brown, of Self Tucker Architects Inc., to the podium to open the presentation. The transcript of his talk is below.

Ray Brown, Hartford ULI study panel chair

Thank you, Mayor. I am Ray Brown, I’m an architect and urban designer from Memphis, Tennessee, and it’s been my privilege and honor and actually a lot of fun to work with these folks this week, and to visit your city. Let me very quickly introduce them and who they are.

Dan Conway is president of THK Associates in Aurora, California. Jennifer Ball is vice president of planning for Central Atlanta Progress in Atlanta, Georgia. Chuck Berling is a developer from Morrison, Colorado, and the owner of Berling Equities LLC. Jerry Miller is also a developer, and is principal of Fabric Developers in Atlanta. Brett Wylie is director of landscape architecture for Cooper Carry in Atlanta. David Kooris of Stamford, Connecticut is director of the Connecticut office of the Regional Plan Association. Andrew Irvine is senior associate at EDAW in Denver, Colorado. Thomas Cox is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is former chief of staff to Mayor Tom Murphy. And Glenda Hood chairs Partners for Livable Communities, is principal of her own business consultancy, and is formerly the mayor of Orlando, Florida.

I don’t know why in the world the ULI thought that I was capable of chairing this panel of heavyweights, but they did, and I’m glad that they sent me these folks to work with, because I’ll tell you, it couldn’t have been a better team.

We would also like to thank our host for this week, and especially the mayor, Eddie Perez, and his staff, John Palmieri, Roger O’Brien, Mark McGovern [pictured at left], and many of your other staff members who contributed to our work this week, and the members of the MetroHartford Alliance, including Andy Bessette, the chairman Oz Griebel [pictured at right], president/CEO John Shemo, Jeff Vose and Diane McLane, all of whom were extremely helpful, and made it possible for us to do our work. And we want to thank the more than 100 members of the Hartford community, who very graciously participated in Tuesday’s conversations with us, and in fact, all of the citizens of Hartford who have made us feel most welcome during our visit here this week.

Senator Edward Kennedy said of his late brother Robert, some people see things as they are, and ask why. Others see things as they could be, and ask, why not? This panel’s charge this week has been to see things as they are, but also to visualize Hartford’s hopes, dreams, and aspirations, and to provide you with tools for achieving them. In other words, we’re going to challenge you to ask, why not? But we’ll also provide you with some means to answer the question, how?

I’ve gotta tell you, this is a great town. I’ve been in a lot of cities, and this is a great town. In spite of the fact that it is, an awful lot of folks think that Hartford suffers from what people have been calling an inferiority complex.

I know what that means. In Memphis, we’re not Nashville, we’re not Atlanta, we’re just Memphis. Well, let me tell you, you’ve got nothing to feel inferior about.

Downtown Hartford is vibrant, it’s lively, it’s beautiful, it’s livable, it’s humane, it’s filled with exceptionally clean and walkable streets, and if it didn’t snow here, I think I might even consider moving. You have a collection of beautiful buildings, both old and new, and diverse neighborhoods and cultures that many, many cities would love to call their own. And the downtown, in fact, the city as a whole, is just palpable with character and energy.

But Hartford’s real strength really resides in her people. Again and again, the panel heard Hartford’s people express a really strong affection for, and great pride in, the city that you call home: its rich history, and especially its recent accomplishments. People of Hartford believe in their town, and in its future, and they have every reason to do so. Certainly Hartford shares some of the problems that every great city has: they include moderately high unemployment, a fairly high poverty rate, and a remarkably low homeownership rate; and if you read USA Today, that seems like that’s only going to get worse because of the recent contraction of the financing and construction markets.

It’s going to get worse everywhere, which means that workers at the lower rate of the income scale, whose housing choices are more limited by financial concerns, will find fewer and fewer choices for affordable housing in neighborhoods where their families can feel safe. Also the cost of construction in Hartford is very heavily out of balance with the amount of profit that developers can produce for their investors. As things stand, it’s nearly impossible for a developer to deliver a product, whether it’s a residential product or a commercial product, that would generate the return on investment that’s necessary to make the development worthwhile—at least not without heavy public subsidy.

Oddly, some of your greatest strengths pose some of the most difficult challenges to your future success. For example, the superb Olmstead “rain of parks” is coupled with a strong network of community institutions, such as churches and hospitals, and the existence of the state capitol and other state government buildings and property, and all this means that more than 50 percent of your city’s land area is non-taxable. That means that you really have to stretch as a city, to continue to move forward, and propel this city into the rest of the 21st century.

Likewise, the fact that you are compact and walkable, combined with a continuous ring of easily-reachable surrounding communities, makes it easy for middle-class families, and jobs, and stores, and in some cases, for entire major employment centers, to desert the heart of the city. That means that remaining businesses often struggle to find enough customers in the evening, and either have to close their doors entirely, or follow their customers to new centers of activity farther out.

Perhaps, though, the greatest challenge faced by Hartford is a pervasive fear of crime. Whether borne out by statistics or not, people’s fear of becoming a victim of crime inhibits many residents of Hartford from fully enjoying all their city has to offer. As well, your school system has struggled to keep pace with current standards, not unlike every major city. This adds, of course, to the desire of more middle-class families to flee the city in favor of more successful school districts elsewhere in the region.

To a certain extent, the panel found that this pattern underscores an oft-unstated, but nevertheless insidious, division and fear between races and economic classes that drives many of the decisions that are made by more affluent, more educated, mostly white residents, to flee Hartford, leaving behind a large population of mostly non-white, often immigrant, and certainly economically disadvantaged [people] who have little choice but to endure the difficult conditions that are caused by poverty and lack of education.

Indeed, much fear of crime in Hartford, as in nearly every American city, is at least in part the result of the fear of “the other,” those people whose manner, culture, language, behavior, is different from our own. The panel wants to emphasize that there is no single silver bullet project that can by itself turn the corner to its civic success. Individually, such projects can have a positive effect on their immediate surroundings. Alone, they have not proven capable of re-energizing an entire downtown. But together, cumulatively, they stimulate their immediate surroundings, and lead the infill growth between them, sort of like the two department stores at the end of a mall.

What’s proven to work better is to build a fully-integrated commuity, economically, socially, racially and functionally integrated. What’s also worked are investments in the quality of the public realm. You’ve done that, you’ve done a lot of that: those brick sidewalks are great. The street light poles, the ornate poles, the banners, it’s a terrific town to walk around in. And that kind of investment in the quality of the public realm, in streets, sidewalks, public spaces and landmarks, not only contributes to, but really defines, the character and the quality of the urban experience, the overall civic image, and the real quality of life for visitors and for residents.

Downtown is lucky to have retained so many of the knowledge-based jobs, and the companies that made it famous. Our world has changed; the global economy has resulted in some disconnection between the leadership of those companies, who once were home-grown people, but now are scattered throughout the globe. They’re disconnected from the civic purposes to which their companies’ founders once devoted themselves. We’ve got to make a change in that, and to be sure, we understand smart business practices dictate that the needs of the shareholders must precede the needs of the cities in which they’re located. Yet there is room for change.

So while the major industries continue to be engaged in and supportive of the city’s success, Hartford’s going to need to become far more creative in securing assistance with further development projects, seeking to create additional jobs, and finding financial support for physical development projects of civic importance.

For example, Hartford will need to learn from other cities what creative financial tools exist that can use public investment to leverage private equity, so as to minimize the cost to the city and the state. Hartford will need to do whatever it can to make it easy for small business entrepreneurs to grow and prosper, and will need to create the energetic, dynamic atmosphere sought by young professionals who desire to live and play in a city core and have many, many choices.

The good news is that with its innovative tradition, Hartford is meeting those challenges with many new projects, such as its new convention center, new science center, new sports medicine magnet school, and new downtown residential opportunities. New entertainment districts are springing up, most notably the one near Union Station, and many upscale restaurants, which we have been very pleased to be served in; I’ll tell you, we have eaten a lot of very good food in this town—that’s why I do these things you know, it’s the food; they don’t pay me anything—those restaurants are springing up all over the place, and they’re great. The public school system is under new guidance, and it’s adopted some new directions, such as magnet schools, and it needs time to work. With the new leadership, and new directions, support from the business community, and support from the public, there’s no reason why the Hartford school system couldn’t become a model for the nation.

As Connecticut’s capital city, Hartford should think of itself as a true national demonstration city, a living laboratory for creating inventive solutions to the urban issues faced by communities across America.

You only have to look around to see the tangible results of the effort and energy that the city’s put into the renaissance of Hartford’s downtown and neighborhoods, and the panel wants to commend the civic leadership, the business leadership, and the people of Hartford for its success.

In addition, plans such as Hartford 2010 will be created to guide future decision-making that will enhance the character of Hartford, and better-connect its neighborhoods to downtown. And in continuing to build on these success stories, more must be done for Hartford to reach that critical mass of feet on the street that will tip the balance into an assured future of being a destination city for tourists and a community of first choice for potential residents and employers.

Our panel was asked to identify strategies consistent with market realities for the redevelopment of large areas to the west and north of downtown core which we are calling Asylum Hill, downtown west, and what we will refer to as North Park, you’ll see why later.

These areas are home to major national corporations and historic Hartford institutions, such as The Aetna, The Hartford, Travelers and The Phoenix. We finally figured out that if it has “The” before it, it’s an insurance company. [Laughter] It comprises the site of a new public safety complex and Union Station, and historic landmarks such as the Keney clock tower [pictured below] and Barnard Brown School, as well as significant vacant land and a number of underutilized buildings.

Development of these areas will require vision, a community-wide will to see it happen, the commitment and persistence to follow it through, and the imaginative use of public and private partnerships to finance and facilitate it.

This report will analyze the market conditions that will determine what can realistically and successfully be achieved; this is not pie-in-the-sky. We will propose strategies for actions to be taken to revitalize the areas, illustrate a vision of the result of taking these actions, and suggest specific tasks, tools and executives that can accomplish the vision.

What we were asked to focus on, and the focus of these strategies:

• Reunite downtown and its nearby neighborhoods.

• Examine the need for new hotel rooms.

• Consider the implications of providing a new multi-use entertainment venue.

• Suggest improvements to the public realm.

• Illustrate the type of development most likely to succeed, and to best meet the needs of all of Hartford.

• Propose tools to guide design.

• Suggest ways to stimulate developer interest.

• Identify proven strategies for the wisest use of public resources.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 1st, 2007 at 1:51 pm and is filed under City corridors, Demographics, Development, Downtown, Events, Hartford, Planning and design, Public safety, Public spaces, Quality of life, Riverfront, Studies and reports, Think tanks, Urban Compass, Urban Land Institute, Urban design, Walkability.