URBAN REDEVELOPMENT DURING A SEVERE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN: 
Connecticut cities and towns face shrinking economy, aging population

HARTFORD

WHAT ABOUT BRIDGEPORT, NEW HAVEN AND WATERBURY?
A most interesting group of comments about our Capital City - did you know that the four largest cities in Connectcut are among the very poorest in the nation?


Has Hartford Had It?
THE HARTFORD COURANT
September 5, 2010

Dead, comatose or just fine, thanks? When the obscure website http://www.247wallst.com  recently declared Hartford among "America's 10 Dead Cities" it provoked a variety of reactions. That range of attitudes — from love it to leave it — is more than evident from the seven people who we asked, "Is Hartford dead?"

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NO NEED TO MOURN — LET HARTFORD GO QUIETLY
By LAURENCE D. COHEN

Hartford is not quite a "dead city" — it is a zombie city, with some accoutrements of being alive, but no soul-satisfying reason to exist.

There is nothing to mourn; the death of a city such as Hartford is neither good nor bad; it is a reflection of a changing environment in which the core urban centers have simply lost relevance — or at least, lost a compelling claim to importance.

A coming together of creative professionals was once an excuse for an urban center, but suburban office parks, or science parks, can do much the same thing, near convenient housing and shopping. Again, that is not a moral or public policy flaw; it is simply a change in behavior and strategic direction.

In truth, the hiring of 15 traffic cops in the Manchesters and West Hartfords of the region, where people actually want to dine and shop, would be more helpful than additional subsidized fantasy projects in Hartford.

Hartford still has culture and corporate office towers, but those accidents of history and convenience could relocate tomorrow.

Hartford is simply no longer important. Instead of being gone, but not forgotten, Hartford is forgotten, but not quite gone.

Laurence D. Cohen is a columnist for The Courant.

HARTFORD'S NOT DEAD, IT'S ONLY SLEEPING
By DONNA BERMAN

Hartford isn't dead. Like Sleeping Beauty, it just looks dead. Hartford doesn't need a prince, but bold-thinking women and men to wake her. It is shameful and, frankly, unsustainable, for the capital of our wealthy state to be one of the country's poorest cities.

What caused the coma? Ignoring Hartford's financial interdependency with the suburbs; burying the Hog (Park) River so that its putrid waters flow beneath the city (talk about bad karma); building Blue Back Square, a movie set of a downtown, making the real downtown, Hartford, irrelevant.

The cure? We can financially connect the city to its surrounding towns so there is money for infrastructure and services; we can uncover the river, clean it up and geographically reconnect Hartford to the suburbs; we can invest more in the arts and create a funky, Greenwich Village-like town with lots of public art and one-of-a-kind stores. Most important, we can create a city that isn't gentrified, but genteel, making room — and offering opportunities — for everyone.

Hartford has a vibrant arts scene, magnificent diversity, a beautiful river, a world-class science center. But until we understand the apartheid-like system we have created, where the lives of Hartford kids and their families are so tragically different from those of their suburban counterparts, Hartford will remain in a coma. We need to wake up to deliver the kiss that will enable Hartford to rise from the seemingly dead.

Rabbi Donna Berman is executive director of the Charter Oak Cultural Center in Hartford.


PEOPLE WORKING TO MAKE IT BETTER
By STEVE CAMPO

Occasionally, after visiting West Hartford Center, I've returned to my longtime home in downtown Hartford disheartened and with a measure of envy.

Often, though, I note another facet of my experience: It all seems a bit too easy. Yes, the streets, shops and restaurants are filled. You feel part of the picture-perfect American town — warm, inviting, clean, affluent, seemingly free of all the problems of mixed-culture urban centers, but not quite real.

I stumbled across an interesting quote the other day from the late Harry Gray, former head of United Technologies Corp. He said, "Reputations are made by searching for things that 'can't be done,' and then doing them."

I might augment his statement to read: "... searching for things — of worth — that 'can't be done,' and then doing them."

Hartford, along with a lot of other American cities, is not a pretty picture. But as long as there are people here working to make the picture better, this city is certainly not dead. It's filled with those striving to do something "that can't be done." But which will be.

Steve Campo is executive director of TheaterWorks in Hartford.


GOOD BONES, GREAT FEATURES, NEEDS FUNDING
By NICHOLAS S. PERNA

Mark Twain, who died 100 years ago, lived on Farmington Avenue. If he were return today he'd probably say, "The report of Hartford's death was an exaggeration." Close to 110,000 jobs are still here, and many of them pay very well. Sure, there are rough neighborhoods, but there are also beautiful ones.

However, Twain would be most impressed with the city's infrastructure. (Obviously, this would exclude those ugly highways that keep people away from Hartford and other cities.) There are world-class cultural institutions such as the Atheneum and the Bushnell and architectural gems like the Connecticut state Capitol, the Old State House and Mark Twain's own fascinating residence. We have a state-of the art convention center complex.

Most of these are within walking distance of each other and some really good restaurants that Twain would certainly enjoy, except for not being able to light up an after-dinner cigar. Also part of this infrastructure are the educational facilities, churches and hospitals whose reach extends far beyond Hartford.

My point is that Hartford has a valuable infrastructure that is alive and well. The city is badly in need of big ideas and big funding, but there's plenty to build on. Twain also said, "The lack of money is the root of all evil."

Nicholas S. Perna teaches economics at Yale University and is economic adviser to Webster Financial Corp.

Note on journalism
IGNORE SHORT-SIGHTED, EMPTY CRITICISM
By JAMIL RAGLAND

We in Hartford are sometimes accused of being thin-skinned. We are quick to lash out when a bad word is spoken about our city. In this instance, though, 24/7 Wall Street's list of America's 10 dead cities is the kind of attack that we should ignore completely.

There are 3.5 million people in Connecticut, and nearly as many opinions about Hartford. You can open The Courant on any given day and find columns, letters and op-ed pieces praising Hartford's successes or condemning its failures. What these differing viewpoints share is a genuine love and concern for the city and its people.

When criticism is offered, it is done in the hope that it will lead to improvement. There is nothing constructive in 24/7 Wall Street's description of Hartford, or any of the other cities. The list is a crude attempt at headline-grabbing sensationalism that is not worth our time.

Hartford has real problems. We welcome any critical assessment that seeks to make a positive difference in the city. 24/7 Wall Street points out our flaws without suggestions for improvement. Calling something as complex and dynamic as a city "dead" is short-sighted at best, and malicious at worst.

Jamil Ragland of Hartford is a junior in the Individualized Degree Program at Trinity College and a gas station clerk in Bloomfield.

VIBRANT, INSPIRING, ENRICHING
By BESSY REYNA

The Hartford I've grown to love is a city that has educated me with its history, inspired and enriched me with its singular cultural centers, nourished me with its multi-ethnic cuisines and introduced me to many of the most passionate, political and generous friends in my life.

Hartford is bursting with fascinating destinations like the Wadsworth Atheneum, whose joyous First Thursday programs bring hundreds, sometimes thousands of art, music and film-lovers together in celebration. It has small gems like the Charter Oak Cultural Center and the Institute for Community Research whose programming explores and supports local ethnic communities presenting artists and artwork of their heritage.

The writer in me finds inspiration in programs at the Mark Twain House, while I feed my nostalgia for the tropics with delicious roast pork, rice and beans at restaurants on Park Street.

Hartford is a city of people who care about each other, who volunteer to teach adults to read at the YWCA or to make sure girls and boys have clubs to play and learn in after school. That Hartford has hundreds of people of modest means or large who donate time and money to the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving to ensure that getting to know this city will always be an enriching experience.

Bessy Reyna is a free-lance writer and former opinion columnist for The Courant.


TIME TO END DEPENDENCE ON STATE
By FERGUS CULLEN

If individuals can become so dependent on government welfare programs that they lose the incentive to work, is it possible for the same thing to happen to a city?

Here's a theory: Hartford suffers from too much help from state government. Massive state-funded projects costing hundreds of millions — Adriaen's Landing, the convention center — are nice, but would not have been priorities for local taxpayers if they were footing the bill.

Well-intended state efforts introduce moral hazard. Because the city is protected from risk by a benevolent state government that views Hartford as "too big to fail," the city loses the incentive for self-reliance. If things get really bad, the state will bail us out.

That costly redevelopment efforts are organized by the state-sponsored Capital City Economic Development Authority, not the city, suggests how dependent the city has become — and how little faith state officials have in the city's ability to manage its own affairs.

Parents who do everything for their children, even when motivated by love, do not help those children become self-sufficient, independent adults. Maybe it's time for the state to give Hartford some tough love and require the city to become responsible for its own future.

Fergus Cullen is executive director of the Yankee Institute for Public Policy, a free-market think tank with offices on the campus of Trinity College.

Hartford's Front Street Rises, Empty
By KENNETH R. GOSSELIN, The Hartford Courant
May 14, 2010

For years, supporters of Front Street in Hartford worried that the downtown retail and entertainment district at Adriaen's Landing would never even get built.

Filling it up with lively restaurants and other businesses would be a tough sell, but that was way off in the future. Bricks and mortar had to come first.

Now it has happened. Construction of the district is nearly complete. The buildings are up and sidewalks are being poured this week.

But don't break out the champagne just yet. A huge challenge remains: The developer has yet to sign even a single lease for the 60,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space strategically located between the Connecticut Convention Center and the rest of downtown.

"That's pretty unusual," R. Michael Goman, a Simsbury real estate consultant and investor, said. "You can imagine even in good times a fairly significant level of pre-leasing is required just to build."

Front Street has been an unusual project from the start, to say the least. Financed with $10 million in direct public subsidies and loans along with $20 million of private investment, the 6-acre development has been the object of Hartford's visions of vitality since it was conceived in the late '90s.

It took three developers and countless versions of the plan to reach the one that has risen up — much diminished from the lavish versions that came before it.

A Marquee Tenant

Sports media giant ESPN, based in Bristol, made an early commitment to Front Street back in 1999, back when then-Gov. John G. Rowland made a $700 million push to revitalize Hartford.

By its very name, Front Street was meant to revive the sort of hustle and bustle that once made the blocks by the river Hartford's busiest, with dozens of storefronts and upstairs apartments filled with families from Italy, Ireland and elsewhere in Europe.

Now, after 18 months, construction is wrapping up just as the economy is showing signs of recovery. Employers are beginning to add jobs and consumers are beginning to buy more.

Front Street could be divided into as many as a dozen separate retail and restaurant spaces, according to the developer, Greenwich-based HB Nitkin Group.

But economists expect the recovery to be slow. And attracting retail to downtown Hartford is a tricky feat, with factors beyond the economy in play.

Peter J. Christian, Nitkin's director of development, said it is "close" to signing two leases, possibly as soon as June. He declined to identify the potential tenants or say how much space they might lease.

Although the Front Street exteriors are nearing completion, the buildings are essentially shells waiting to be filled. Step inside any of the buildings, and you'll see dirt floors. Even if leases are signed in June, it could still be months before the businesses open.

Christian said Nitkin has been aggressively reaching out to brokers and has been getting more of a response in the past six months, compared with a year ago when there was little interest.

"Having the building up has helped," Christian said. "We are doing everything we can to get people here."

Christian said Nitkin also is willing to help pay for interior improvements.

Mike Soltys, an ESPN spokesman, said the discussions with Nitkin are "active and ongoing."

"We are looking to see if we can find that fit that makes sense for us," Soltys said.

But Adriaen's Landing has changed dramatically since ESPN first committed. At that time, the development had a football stadium, hundreds of apartments, many more stores and a public "town square."

ESPN's focus also has changed, as it has downsized its sports retail lines and closed two ESPN Zone restaurants in the past year, casualties of the economy. The company never planned an ESPN Zone for Front Street, and has not revealed its concept for Hartford.

Modern Lines

Nitkin hopes to attract national, regional and local operators that together form a combination not already established in the area. Some of the venues could host smaller concerts in a nightclub setting or, perhaps, a dinner theater, Christian said.

"They should try to find newer, more popular, more hip, more interesting businesses so there is a complementary not competitive factor," said Margery Steinberg, an associate professor of marketing at the Barney School of Business at the University of Hartford.

The $30 million price tag for the restaurant and entertainment district — the first phase of Front Street — does not include $32 million in federal funding for the two parking garages that bookend Front Street, one of which is already open.

Nor does it include a planned second phase of apartments that would incorporate the adjacent facade of the old Hartford Times building, and more retail space. The apartments were delayed by the recession.

Front Street's architecture has modern lines, but also classical pediments and pilasters that echo some of the oldest buildings in the city, including the landmark Travelers Tower.

To succeed, Front Street will not only have to tap into convention visitors and downtown residents, it will have to draw from the area surrounding Hartford where residents already have a plethora of options for dining and entertainment.

"What the developer has to do is create a sense of place, a destination spot where people want to go and hang out, like a West Hartford Center," said Tim McNamara, a commercial real estate broker at SullivanHayes Cos. in Farmington, who specializes in retail leasing.

Real estate consultant Goman said he believes a fully leased Front Street could attract visitors who live within a 20- or 30-minute drive, in addition to city residents and conventioneers.

The construction milestone will be celebrated Saturday as Riverfront Recapture hosts its annual "Big Mo" event in one of the Front Street storefronts. Joseph Marfuggi, Riverfront Recapture's president, said he is confident that Front Street will become a strong asset for downtown Hartford and will attract visitors, some of whom might not regularly come to Hartford now.

"If you give people a reason to come that's distinctive and different," Marfuggi said, "they will come."

Copyright © 2010, The Hartford Courant

WEST HARTFORD


"Sustainable Development" Fall Conference 2004, LWVCT included Richard Heapes on a panel with guest speaker David LeVasseur of OPM, CLEAR (Chet Arnold) Mayor DeStefano of New Haven, then Co-Chair. of P&D, Hon. Lew Wallace, C.B.I.A. rep and Curt Johnson of CFE.  Mr. Le Vasseur now heads the Governor's "Responsible Growth" branch of OPM.  Photos above from some Courant articles over time as the project progressed - related to general zoning matters here.

West Hartford Blueback Square a success!!!   Go to interactive map here:  http://www.bluebacksquare.com/map/
New Connecticut downtown revival works!  Lends new significance to "blue laws" that most cities have passed to prevent riots, etc.

West Htfd. cops enforcing outdoor eating ban after 10
CT POST
The Associated Press
Published: 06:28 a.m., Thursday, July 8, 2010

WEST HARTFORD -- A rarely enforced ordinance limiting outdoor dining in West Hartford has come back to life as downtown becomes more popular.

Town police have reminded business owners of a 10 p.m. curfew on outdoor dining. The ordinance allows customers who order food outside an establishment before 10 p.m. to stay seated as long as it takes to finish dining.

Food and drinks must be served inside after 10 p.m.

For years, the curfew was seldom enforced because there was no need to follow it.

But a decade of development in the town center, including a $158 million retail-residential complex, made West Hartford a restaurant destination for visitors from as far away as Massachusetts and the shoreline.

However, complaints from some residents about the downtown activity spurred reminders of the curfew.

LAWSUIT DEAL: Westfarms' Owners Agree To $34 Million Settlement With Blue Back
By BILL LEUKHARDT, The Harford Courant
December 15, 2009

WEST HARTFORD —

The owners of Blue Back Square are getting $34 million in compensation for lost revenue, increased financing costs and other losses as a result of the yearlong construction delay caused by a blizzard of 11 anti-Blue Back lawsuits bankrolled by a retail competitor.

Taubman Centers Inc., the corporate parent of Westfarms mall and the mall's majority owner, agreed in an out-of-court settlement last week to pay its $26.8 million share of the money by today.

Pictures: Blue Back Square

The negotiated settlement — Blue Back lawyers were seeking more than $40 million — resolves Blue Back's 2007 lawsuit seeking damages. There is no admission of liability or fault in the settlement by Taubman, which owns 79 percent of the mall, or its four Westfarms partners, who own 21 percent.

The settlement money is being split by the private developers of Blue Back: Raymond Road Associates, BBS Development LLC and Blue Back Square LLC.

The lawsuits postponed Blue Back construction, resulting in a 2007 opening, just as the national economy began to shrivel.

"The lawsuits pushed them right into the downturn," Blue Back attorney John Nolan of Day Pitney's Hartford office said Monday. "By the time they opened Crate & Barrel [in October 2007], the economy was in trouble. Plus there was a big spike in construction costs during the delay."

Robert Wienner, the managing partner in Blue Back, said the time lost because of Taubman's role in opposing Blue Back "turned out to be a pretty important year. It made it more difficult to sell and lease condos. Construction costs increased. Financing was more difficult to arrange."

Westfarms mall is a few miles from Blue Back Square, a $159 million retail-housing-commercial complex in West Hartford Center. The project, a 600,000-square-foot development on 20 acres, was made possible by a town investment of $48 million, including some property. The developers invested more than twice that amount.

The town also sued Taubman, seeking $4.5 million in damages because of the Blue Back delays. Patrick Alair, the town's deputy corporation counsel, declined comment Monday.

That lawsuit is in the complex litigation section of Superior Court in Waterbury. The complaint says the town was damaged by a "baseless and ultimately fruitless campaign" by Westfarms' owners to delay Blue Back in hopes it would fail and so not compete with Westfarms for tenants.

The legal attacks continued despite residents' approval for Blue Back in two referendums, the town complaint states. The main purpose of the anti-Blue Back action was to eliminate "the perceived economic threat" to Westfarms. The mall's parent corporation organized and controlled "purported citizen groups" that sued the developer to stop the project, the complaints state.

The town complaint alleges that a main goal of the lawsuits was to prevent Crate & Barrel from becoming an anchor tenant at Blue Back and to entice that store to open at Westfarms.

Town Manager Ronald Van Winkle said the town so far has spent about $600,000 on lawyers to fight the anti-Blue Back lawsuits. The delay added to construction costs and delayed the collection of tax revenue, he said.

Copyright © 2009, The Hartford Courant

NOT A HAPPY ENDING DEPARTMENT (click here)...see above!
I get it now!  This is like an old German fairy tale, the three wishes. 

  1. First wish, the town of West Hartford wishes for a development to take away an unsightly car dealership, pay for additions to Town Hall, and boost the Grand List - Blue Back Square is that development; 
  2. second wish, they wish that Westfarms Mall objections to Blue Back Square would just go away - they sue Westfarms for instigating opposition; 
  3. third wish, the "benefits" of Blue Back must be used to pay the lawyers, and puts Westfarms Mall out of business or into bankruptcy.
Our prediction:  could go any number of ways, but one outcome might be that Westfarms goes bankrupt, Blue Back Square's major tenant goes bankrupt because no one is buying anything they sell anymore, and West Hartford loses millions in property tax payments.  Thus taxes to homeowners rise...

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BLUE BACK SQUARE LAWSUITS: Town, Blue Back Developers Offering To Settle Lawsuits Against Westfarms' Parent
By BILL LEUKHARDT |  Hartford Courant
May 10, 2009

WEST HARTFORD —

The town and the developers of Blue Back Square would accept $34 million to settle their lawsuits against the owners of Westfarms mall, who were behind a blizzard of lawsuits that delayed construction of Blue Back for a year.

The $34 million is the amount that the plaintiffs say the delay cost them during the year they successfully battled anti-Blue Back lawsuits backed by Taubman Centers Inc., the Michigan-based owner of Westfarms.

The mall is a few miles from Blue Back Square, a $159 million retail-housing-commercial complex that opened in 2007 in West Hartford Center.

The town wants $4.5 million and the developers of Blue Back $29.5 million from Taubman, or else the case will go to trial, where the plaintiffs are seeking triple damages, according to court papers.

The $34 million settlement figure is in motions that attorneys for the town and Blue Back filed this month. The initial lawsuits against Taubman were filed in 2007 with the complex litigation section of Superior Court in Waterbury.

Opponents financed and controlled by Taubman filed 12 legal actions in an ultimately failed bid to stop Blue Back, a project that included a town investment of $48 million, including some property. The developer invested $110 million in the project.

Mayor Scott Slifka said that the delay hurt the town, so seeking compensation "is our responsibility to taxpayers."

The town must pay $4.08 million a year in bond costs for its Blue Back expenses but receives about $3 million in new tax payments from the complex and about $2 million in annual income from two garages that it bought from the developers.

Bruce Segal, Taubman's lead counsel, said that he was not authorized to speak publicly about the offer. Taubman has 30 days to respond to the offer.

The offer reflects the cost of lost tax revenues, parking garage income, rents and increased financing and construction costs caused by the legal challenges to Blue Back, court records say.

In a ruling in March against a defendant's motion challenging the lawsuits, Judge Dennis G. Eveleigh noted that previous filings allege that Taubman "paid for and controlled numerous lawsuits designed solely to obstruct or delay the project, nominally in the name of several individuals who were West Hartford residents."

Taubman indemnified the residents and neither the town nor Blue Back developers are suing those residents.

Eveleigh also noted that court filings allege that Taubman "attempted to prevent Crate & Barrel, the Blue Back Square anchor tenant, from locating in a store in Blue Back Square."

In a recent 10-K filing with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission that assesses its finances, Taubman noted that it faces lawsuits prompted by Blue Back "seeking damages in excess of $30 million" and also double and triple damages.

"The lawsuits are in their early stages and we are vigorously defending both," Taubman wrote in its SEC filing. "The outcome of these lawsuits cannot be predicted with any certainty and management is currently unable to estimate an amount or range of potential loss that could result if an unfavorable outcome occurs."
"How does a city refresh its downtown without doing Urban Renewal?"
BLUEBACK SQUARE  in WEST HARTFORD and other JOINT DEVELOPMENT EXAMPLES.

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First Anniversary: Despite Economy, West Hartford's Blue Back Gamble Pays Off
By JOSH KOVNER, The Hartford Courant
November 16, 2008

Much of Barbara and John Hamill's life at Blue Back Square is self-contained, with the gym, shops, restaurants, movie theater, library and their condo-dwelling neighbors just steps away.

The grandkids love to come over, and there are chance discoveries: a nighttime concert in Blue Back's public square, an event at the mega- Barnes & Noble, even window shopping.

This is the urban lifestyle they sought when they took a gamble and moved 12 miles from Avon to a $1.3 million condo in this unabashed combination of housing, shopping, offices and entertainment, just east of South Main Street and the long established West Hartford Center.

"It's so much of a neighborhood here," said Barbara Hamill, 59, who used to be a real estate broker in midtown Manhattan. "We wanted a fun, active, healthy lifestyle, and we have it."

In a way, the town took the gamble with the Hamills and the other first-generation Blue Back residents, raising $48.8 million for two parking garages and a series of public improvements, including a multimillion-dollar expansion of the library, to complement the $250 million development.

Blue Back, with nearly three dozen shops and restaurants, is a year old this month. Though the economy has sapped some of its early momentum, the concerns that the 600,000-square-foot mini-downtown would create traffic jams, damage property values and hurt the Center have not materialized.

In fact, several Center merchants said Blue Back has brought in more business, and interim Town Manager Ronald Van Winkle said house and condo prices on streets surrounding Blue Back have increased at a slightly higher rate than comparable properties farther away.

"It's been good for us," said Russell Hunter, owner of Pfau's Hardware Store, a wooden-floored, yellow-walled fixture on Farmington Avenue in the bustling, eclectic Center, which contrasts with Blue Back's sleekness. "People move into Blue Back, they need curtain rods, so they come up the hill."

Sarah Ann Bedell, the owner of Bookworm on Farmington Avenue, said her loyal following has helped her hold her own, even prosper, a short distance from Blue Back's Barnes & Noble. She said she's seeing more out-of-state customers — people who had probably visited Blue Back — than ever before.

Abe Kaoud said sales have climbed at his Oriental rug store on the west side of South Main Street, the thoroughfare between the Center and Blue Back.

Richard Mahoney, who brokered many of the leases in the Center over the decades, said he is seeing "some crossover business," and added that Center and Blue Back merchants are working together to promote the area and prepare for Christmas.

One economics expert said well-designed, mixed-used developments — those that work like neighborhoods, with the housing, retail, office, entertainment and public aspects supporting one another — can outlast economic upheaval.

"West Hartford leaders had a very clear sense of what they wanted to see down there," said Fred Carstensen, a professor of economics at the University of Connecticut. "They made sure Blue Back was integrated with the Center. Details like the crosswalks and median that made South Main Street more accessible to pedestrians were very important. Now there is a sense that it is all one place, a connection."

Carstensen, director of the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis, said there has been a shift over the last 15 years "in people's preferences about where they want to live and what they want out of their neighborhoods. Increasingly, they want to walk to get what they need. The physical proximity within Blue Back, the relatively narrow streets, the convenience make it a very inviting place."

In a bleak economy, more than 90 percent of the retail and office space is occupied, with leasing rates that remain the highest in Greater Hartford.

A condo at Blue Back sold in September for $1.77 million to an auto dealership owner and his wife from Avon, the highest condo sale price in Hartford County in years, according to The Warren Group, the Boston-based real-estate analyst.

Hartford Hospital invested a significant stake in Blue Back, too, leasing parts of three floors of office space for a regional wellness center, where patients can use the New York Sports Club, in the same building, for rehabilitation.

"We took great pains during the approval process to make sure this wasn't going to be a mall or a strip plaza," Mayor Scott Slifka said. "This was going to be walkable, it was going to be 'dinner and a movie,' it was going to be the next generation of our Center, a draw for families, a place where people lived."

He and other town officials said the gamble is paying off, in part because the development attracted such national retailers as REI, Crate & Barrel and the Cheesecake Factory, which draw shoppers from a 60-mile radius and beyond.

Above all, they say, Blue Back has become a destination for townspeople and for visitors, a place for spontaneous gatherings, for events or for solitude. It has become, they say, a neighborhood that at once bolsters the Center and draws strength from it.

"It's meant much more than taxes," Van Winkle said. "It's created a community, and a wider identity for West Hartford, and it has helped the Center, in the midst of this very difficult recession, avoid a more severe decline."

The largest and most scrutinized project ever undertaken in town is paying its way, too, said Christopher Johnson, West Hartford's finance director. It is expected to generate at least $6.16 million in taxes and parking revenue next year. That leaves about $2 million a year for the town — after the annual payment of $4.08 million is made on the 20-year bonds the town sold.

In addition to the public improvements financed with the $48.8 million bond sale, the town turned over the former board of education building on the east side of South Main to Blue Back — it now houses Fleming's Prime Steakhouse, with Besito, an upscale Mexican restaurant and lounge, coming soon — as well as other land on South Main and Memorial Road. The property had a value of $10.8 million. The school board's offices were moved to renovated space on the fourth floor of town hall.

Blue Back hasn't been immune to the economic downturn. All 48 apartments are rented, at about $1,500 a month for studios, but 14 of 59 condos are vacant, and revenue from the parking garages — about $1.6 million over the past year — is roughly $300,000 below the town's expectations. Some of that could be because people prefer to park in the Center's surface lots, which are consistently full, rather than Blue Back's garages, said John Phillips, who oversees municipal parking in town.

"Certainly, the condo sales have slowed," Blue Back partner Robert Wienner said, "but we're working hard on that.

"My primary measure of how we're doing," he said, "is busy sidewalks and shopping bags — and that's what I see."

The partners haven't backed off on the sale prices of the remaining condos, which range from $589,000 to $819,000, but they have eliminated the condo fees of nearly $7,000 in the first year and switched to an aggressive local Realtor to attract buyers. On a recent Saturday, there were 18 showings.

Wienner declined to discuss actual monthly sales figures at Blue Back's stores.

"The trend is solid. Most tenants are showing monthly gains," he said. "When five new stores that are under lease open up, we'll have leased 93 percent of our retail square footage. In this economy, that's incredibly good."

Some stores may come and go, but for the Hamills, Blue Back is home.

On a recent morning, Barbara Hamill stepped out of her building, The Heritage, which has the attitude of a stately hotel and holds court behind town hall. She walked around the corner, past boutiques and restaurants, to the New York Sports Club for a workout with her personal trainer. Then she crossed Raymond Road to Whole Foods, which wasn't built by the Blue Back developers but has become a popular amenity. Toting food, Hamill returned to her building's elegant lobby, where residents can entertain. She put out a spread and hosted a game of mah-jongg.

There have been many of these Blue Back mornings for the Hamills — and afternoons and evenings, as well: picnic lunches in the public square just off Isham Road; joining a crowd of 300 for an outdoor jazz concert; visits to the library, with an entrance in the square; movie nights at the Bow-Tie Cinema, which overlooks the square; wine-tastings; and chance meetings with neighbors from The Heritage that lead to walks, or dinner and drinks at one of Blue Back's restaurants.

"Avon is a wonderful place to raise children, but everything is 20 minutes away. You are always in your car. Here, I do get the feeling that we all kind of matter. It's not like we're isolated here, or hidden away. I feel very fortunate to live here, to have made that move," Barbara Hamill said.

John Hamill, 64, a real-estate developer, said he balked at first. "I said to my wife, 'What, are you crazy?' It hadn't been built. It was just a concept, and I don't like change. But it was the smartest move we could have made. It has been very, very exciting here."

Construction began in 2005 on the site of two vacant or soon-to-be-vacant auto-dealerships, an aging American Legion building and some multifamily housing.

Several years earlier, Van Winkle and Rob Rowlson, then the town's business-development officer, had approached Rachel Grody, who owned one of the dealership properties, about the idea of a mixed-use development with a housing component that played off the strengths of the Center. The town solicited ideas from developers, but only the Blue Back partners put down a financial stake, obtaining an option to buy Grody's land and agreeing to clean up the environmental contamination.

The project, and the town's role in it, spawned lawsuits from surrounding property owners that were funded by the Taubman Co., owners of Westfarms mall. Blue Back and the town eventually won in court, but the project was delayed more than a year.

"My criticism always has been the public subsidy," said Joe Visconti, an opponent and a Republican member of the town council who lost a bid to unseat U.S. Rep. John Larson on Election Day. "And I think we need to do some marketing — free days, gift certificates — to pull more people into the garages that we paid for.

"I think Blue Back's a little tight," he said. "The streets are a little tight. But hey, my kids go to the theater there. A lot of people really enjoy it. People are adapting. It's a matter of taste."

For more photos of Blue Back Square, visit courant.com/blueback
Developer Of Blue Back Condos Offers Incentive
Hartford Courant
By KENNETH R. GOSSELIN
October 14, 2008
 
Three years ago, shovels were barely in the ground at Blue Back Square in West Hartford and there were already 24 deposits on the luxury condominiums at the heart of the $159 million development.

But as the market for houses and condos across the state has slowed significantly from the pace of 2005, even trendy Blue Back is feeling a pinch.  The developers of the shopping, housing and entertainment complex near the town's center have begun offering an incentive: one year of free condo fees thrown in if a unit is under contract by Nov. 30 and the deal is closed by the end of the year.

Blue Back Square LLC wants to attract buyers for the 14 remaining condos, ranging in price from $589,000 to $819,000. The developers also are bringing in a local real estate agency to show the units, rather than relying on the Washington, D.C-based agency that made the first sales pitch. So far, 45 of the 59 condos have been sold.  The developers are hoping that the combination of incentives — savings of up to $6,960 a year in condo fees in the first year — and switching to the local agency, which can be ready for a showing quickly, will reinvigorate sales in a slow housing market that has been complicated by tougher credit terms.

"A lot of people aren't buying right now, and we have a small number of units," said Caroline Craig, marketing manager at Ronus Properties, the property manager for the condos, known as The Heritage. "We want to entice the interest of buyers."

Experts say it is not unusual for developers to introduce incentives when the initial flurry of sales has waned, even in good times. Often, the units with the best views and locations are snapped up first, though Craig said that wasn't the case at Blue Back.  Incentives have become more critical, and generous, in the housing downturn, now in its third year in Connecticut. Developers often throw in kitchen and bathroom upgrades for free on new construction. The incentives at Blue Back are a clear sign that West Hartford isn't immune to the slowdown.

Condo sales are down 29 percent from a 20-year peak in 2005, but the West Hartford condo market this year is performing better than Hartford County or the state as a whole, both of which are seeing deeper declines.  For the first eight months of this year, condo sales in West Hartford fell 8.4 percent, compared with the same period last year, according to The Warren Group.

That compares with a 26 percent decline in Hartford County and 33 percent drop for the state as a whole in the same period.  Fewer condos are sold in Connecticut than single-family houses; therefore, sales figures for condominiums can show wide percentage swings.  Blue Back's developers saw the real estate slowdown coming as early as 2006, when they scaled back the number of condos in favor of adding apartments.

Ellyn Marshall, a real estate agent at William Raveis, the agency taking over the sales, said she is preparing for the new marketing campaign.  Marshall said The Heritage appeals to buyers who have lived in older homes in the area from the 1920s. Those homes had architectural details such as molding, cornices and wainscoting, which have been incorporated into units at The Heritage.  Sara Cole, who moved into The Heritage in June, said she hopes the remaining condos — two-bedroom units, some with a den — are sold. It's just better to have units occupied than having them vacant, she said.

"I think I was one of the earliest to sign up," Cole said. "All my friends thought I was crazy, but now they are envious.

Her fifth-floor, 1,850-square-foot unit was still being built when she bought it, so she had some choices for customizing — including replacing the planned white marble floors in the powder room and entryway with hardwood.  Cole's unit has 10-foot ceilings, a view of hills and church steeples and a gas fireplace. She enjoys the easy walk to the nearby town library, exercise center and a movie theater in the commercial portion of Blue Back Square.

"There's a world out there," Cole said, adding that she never feels isolated. "It's like living in a small European village in a big city."

Then she says, laughing: "You can stay here till you're very, very old. All you'd need is one of those scooters."
In A Blue Back Minute - Like It Or Not, West Hartford Is The New Urban
Hartford Courant\
Rick Green
November 4, 2007

I was there at the precious moment West Hartford became a city.

It might have been in the town hall auditorium Thursday night. The connected and affluent raised their blue martinis, balancing small plates of apricot-glazed corned beef and sushi, in a self-confident celebration of the opening of West Hartford's trendy tableau of shopping and public life: Blue Back Square.

Or was it Friday, when I bumped into a woman walking out of that large, new home furnishings store?

"I'm lost in West Hartford," she told me enthusiastically, standing at the busy new cobblestone corner of Isham and Memorial roads. She pulled a handful of movie tickets out of her pocket and informed me she was walking off to the new cinema with her kids.

Pause for a moment in our new, public downtown. It's the sort of place these days that seems to sprout up not in New England but the Southwest, and then it's within a gated community.

Gaze at the soon-to-reopen renovated public library and the white church steeple behind it. Look over the mega-bookstore, the movie theater, the chain restaurants, the funky home store, the natural foods supermarket, the hip Pacific Northwest outdoor store and the apartments and condos and bustling street life around you.

You're not at Westfarms, where private police tell you what to do. You are outside, on public property: Protest the war, support the troops. Buy something. Refuse to buy something.

Blue Back is everything supporters and detractors say it is. Sure, this is consumerism-as-lifestyle. But it is also a brilliant merger of housing, offices, shopping and civic life.

Yes, it may tarnish the "quiet dignity" of an old town center. But it is also hope for a future where we walk, go to movies, talk to each other more and read more books - and of course wear plenty of fleece and use lots of cool kitchen gadgets.

To some - including me - it is a valiant, if symbolic and flawed, counterpunch to the dominant suburban ethos of cars, malls and McMansions. Suburbia, author James Howard Kunstler writes, is "the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world."

Blue Back's opening is a portentous snapshot in the history of West Hartford, perhaps the most self-analyzed, self-absorbed and over-debated suburb in Connecticut.

Everyone was well into the merlot and martinis at the Blue Back VIP party Thursday when I heard Mayor Scott Slifka tell the room this was about "securing our future" and "keeping this town exactly the way it should be."

OK, fine, Mr. Mayor. But aren't we talking urban - that proxy word some in West Hartford cannot bring themselves to utter because it represents all things unwanted about its neighboring city?

I found Tracey Wilson, who set me straight about the town and the city. This place, she explained, has always been evolving with an eye toward a planned future, from the first streetcars to the momentous arrival of Lord & Taylor in Bishops Corner to the misdiagnosed death of the town center and opening of Westfarms.

"West Hartford has never been a suburb like Simsbury or Avon," Wilson, the official municipal historian with a doctorate from Brown, told me, reminding me this town's roots as an urban suburb date to the 19th century.

"It had an industrial base. West Hartford was the first [Connecticut] town to have zoning," said Wilson, a history teacher at Conard High School. "There has always been this `we are going to manage this' attitude. A controlled growth."

Well, of course, said Barbara Carpenter, the loquacious seen-everywhere kindergarten teacher who was on the town council when Blue Back was finally approved. It's about moving forward, broadening the tax base and making this town something more, she said.

"West Hartford has changed," said Carpenter, who herself has become something else: a refugee from the town council who is now president of the local teachers' union. "We are more urban. This is the day we became a city."

So I set out Friday morning with a fresh eye to see, on the first day of Blue Back, if this was just kindergarten talk - or the truth.

Who better to ask than Sally Jewell, who was holding the door for patrons at the just-opening REI. What is this merger of new Blue Back and old West Hartford?


"It's urban," said Jewell, the Zen-like president and CEO of REI. "It means I'm not in a suburb where I have to drive a long way."

Nearby, my savvy friend Steve - who lives on the western, country side of town - had been among those waiting in line to be first to enter Jewell's store. "It's the branding of West Hartford," he explained. "We'll all start dressing cool."

Steve was correct, as usual, but I sought out deeper new urbanist thinking in the old - what people call the real - center. At a Starbucks located in what was a hardware store when I moved to town in 1992, I found what I wanted: a philosophy professor from a nearby college. He withheld his name but agreed to share some insight.

"The interesting question is whether it is all in the service of consumption," the professor said, outlining the Blue Back dichotomy: It is a place for both the mind and materialism.

Yes, I pressed, but how does it make you feel?

"We now feel like we live on the Upper West Side. We are walking more," he said. "Urban," I replied.

Still, as I strolled back to Blue Back to meet my wife for her lunch break, I recalled the words of Rhea M. Lettiere. She looked at the new streetscape and proclaimed, "Gone is the dignity!"

"Couldn't there be a little more respect for what has been held dear by so many?" she eloquently asked in a recent letter to this newspaper.

Perhaps fortuitously, one of the Blue Back developers, Richard Heapes, was there as I crossed Main Street. He reminded me, as we stood near the restored Noah Webster statue, how West Hartford Center has always been evolving.

Heapes said it will take time for some to understand what has happened after Blue Back's "cataclysmic change."

The reality is as obvious as the modernist front of Crate & Barrel store that so unsettled Rhea Lettiere.

The urban and squeaky clean downtown for the region is here, in the city of West Hartford.


Blue Back Scramble Is On; Development's Cachet Has Businesses Vying Intensely For Office Space, Pushing Up Rates
By KENNETH R. GOSSELIN | Courant Staff Writer
August 14, 2007

August is usually one of the slowest months for office leasing in Greater Hartford.

But in West Hartford, aspiring tenants are battling for space despite the summer heat, hoping to make a deal for some of the last remaining blocks of office space that remain in the $159 million Blue Back Square development near the town's center.

Demand has been so intense that Blue Back's developers decided to add another 30,000 square feet of office space to the initial 60,000 square feet by turning what was first designed as medical space into offices.
 
The competition is pushing office leasing rates up to nearly $40 a square foot, the highest seen in the region, according to brokers involved in tenant negotiations. That compares with an average of $22 a square foot for similar prime space in the suburbs around the city of Hartford, according to commercial broker Cushman & Wakefield.

The leasing is particularly eye-catching because the office space in Blue Back was built without any tenants signed up in advance, a practice known as building "on spec." In recent years, similar construction in the suburbs has seen office buildings sit on the market for at least a couple of years before major tenants were snared.

In contrast, leasing at Blue Back began in February with the announcement of its first office tenant - the law firm Cummings & Lockwood. The announcement came nine months before the office space was to be completed, expected on Nov. 1. That's when most of the project's housing, retail, entertainment and office development is scheduled to be finished.

Of the 90,000 square feet of office space - split between two buildings, The Lexicon and The Rutherford, the latter mostly medical - about 26,000 square feet remain available, according to Tom York, a leasing agent for the space at commercial real estate services firm CB Richard Ellis in Hartford.

Possible tenants have proposals - the latest submitted Monday - for a total of 40,000 square feet, York said.

The leasing of office space hasn't drawn as much attention as the upscale condominiums, the fancy shops and restaurants or the belated decision to include apartments for young professionals. But York and others say the attraction is the same: the cachet of an urban-like environment where people live, work and shop.

"It's not just about the leasing of office space," York said. "It's the overall environment that you're buying into."

Several of the office tenants who have already signed leases at Blue Back are focused on estate planning and wealth management. They say West Hartford's affluent demographics made the town an obvious choice for establishing a new office or expanding an existing one. But the buzz around Blue Back also was a deciding factor, they say.

"The whole sense of it being new and exciting - we thought it would be a nice draw," said Robert A. Penney, regional president for BNYMellon's private wealth management group in northern Connecticut.

BNYMellon, formed in the July 1 merger of Bank of New York and Pittsburgh-based Mellon Financial, will establish its first office in Greater Hartford at Blue Back, having signed a 10-year lease for 3,600 square feet. The group caters to individuals with an average of $2 million in assets for investing.

Cummings & Lockwood, the first tenant to sign at Blue Back, saw the upscale setting as fitting well with its estate planning clientele, people mostly in their 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. The firm wanted to expand its West Hartford office, but there wasn't enough space available at Town Center on South Main Street, where the firm now leases.

"We want nice offices," said Paul Bourdeau, managing partner of the West Hartford office. "We want them to be functional, but we also want them to be nice."

Tenants with signed leases are now constructing their new offices, some of them already sectioning off leased space with metal studs that will eventually form offices and conference rooms. On Monday, workers in the three-story Lexicon, which will also have ground floor retail space, screwed metal studs into place. On the street below, a crew rolled out a section of asphalt pavement.

Bourdeau said Cummings & Lockwood is hoping to move in sometime in December.

West Hartford hasn't seen new office construction in its downtown since the early 1990s, when Town Center was built. That also has led to a dearth of prime, "Class A" space that boasts modern floor plans and amenities.

The lack of new construction, combined with the traditional strength of the West Hartford office market, helped the developers decide to build without leases, said Robert N. Wienner, a managing partner at Blue Back Square Development. But that didn't come without some worries.

"In a region with little or no absorption, it occurred to us there might be a little risk," Wienner said. Absorption is a measure of the net space that is leased.

Wienner's concern was well-founded, especially when it comes to new construction. Several high-profile office projects built on spec in Rocky Hill and Glastonbury sat for a couple of years without tenants after they were completed.

In Rocky Hill, a four-story office building at 400 Capital Blvd. was completed in 2003, but was not leased until three years later, despite its proximity to a hotel and I-91, also arguably a premiere location in Greater Hartford.

But Wienner said the amount of office space at Blue Back also was conservative.

Part of what is driving up the office rents at Blue Back is that there is little comparable space other than Town Center. Some say the rising rents at Blue Back could ripple out to other office space in and around the center of West Hartford

Leasing, while slow in the summer, hasn't been completely dead in Greater Hartford, particularly in the suburbs, said Jay Wamester, a broker at Collier's Dow & Condon in Hartford.

"But West Hartford - that's a world unto itself," Wamester said.
Blue Back Payback
Hartford Courant editorial
April 27, 2007

Now that the last legal challenge to the Blue Back Square development has been tossed out of court, West Hartford town officials should give serious thought to countersuing the plaintiffs and the Blue Back competitor who bankrolled their baseless lawsuits.

The legal actions, filed by town residents but funded and engineered by The Taubman Co., which owns Westfarms mall, were evidently intended to stop the project by delaying it, thereby driving up the cost.

They failed to stop Blue Back but succeeded in delaying it. Blue Back is taking a year longer to build and West Hartford spent about $500,000 to defend against the lawsuits. Officials have no estimate yet of how much tax revenue was lost because of the delay or how the interruption affected the rate of interest on bonds issued to pay for Blue Back.

Lawsuits that accuse people or organizations of abusing the court system are very difficult but not impossible to prove. Two of the Taubman-backed legal actions, challenging zoning approvals and traffic changes, materialized after West Hartford residents voted overwhelmingly - in two referendums - to go forward with the project.

Although the Superior Court judge who heard the cases never intimated that the lawsuits were frivolous, the judge did note that the Taubman-backed plaintiffs never once sought a temporary injunction to halt the project.

A countersuit has the potential of recovering lost or uncollected funds and should be approached with that in mind. That it would give the litigious competitor a taste of its own medicine is a bonus.
Blue Back Square Battle Formally Ends
By DANIEL P. JONES, Courant Staff Writer 
April 24, 2007

WEST HARTFORD -- The last remaining count of a lawsuit by Blue Back Square opponents backed by Westfarms mall has been dismissed, formally ending a bitter and ultimately losing battle to block the $158.8 million development.

The final part of the legal battle, an allegation that town actions to borrow $48.8 million for the town's portions of the project were "arbitrary and capricious," was dismissed as moot. The developers are well into construction and plan to open part of the project next month and the entire development in November.

Superior Court Judge Dennis G. Eveleigh dismissed the remaining count last week and town officials were notified late last week, West Hartford deputy corporation counsel Pat Alair said Monday. Seven of eight counts were dismissed in September 2005.

Mayor Scott Slifka said that the opponents didn't win a single round in the fight but the delays caused by the lawsuit meant that full annual parking, property tax, and special services district revenues from the Blue Back Square development have been pushed back by about a year. When completed, the project is expected to add about $2.8 million to the town's annual net revenue.

Town officials estimate West Hartford has spent about $500,000 to defend against the lawsuit.

"With the budget coming upon us we've had a number of residents ask about the Blue Back effect in the hope that it would offset some expected budget increases," Slifka said Monday. "And we've had to explain that the full revenue has not yet been realized because of the delays to the project."

Slifka said many of the residents who have been critical of the town's proposed spending plan for next fiscal year also were opponents of Blue Back Square. The town council tonight is expected to reduce the town manager's proposed budget and vote on the spending plan. But council members have not said how much they plan to cut from the proposed budget.

The plaintiffs - town residents Barbara Scully, Jasyn Sadler and Ellen Burchill Brassil - could have filed a request to withdraw their lawsuit, Alair said.

Instead, the plaintiffs filed a motion to dismiss their own suit, he said. But the court concluded that Connecticut's rules governing lawsuits do not allow plaintiffs to file motions to have their own cases dismissed.

So the developer, BBS Development, filed a motion to dismiss the suit and the town joined that move through oral arguments in court.

Scully has moved to Florida. Reached by telephone in Florida, she said she did not want to comment on the dismissal of the last count of the lawsuit.

Scully had alleged in the lawsuit opposing Blue Back Square, filed in early 2005, that, among other things, the development would harm the economic value of her home. According to town records, she bought her condominium at 3 Burr St. in West Hartford for $115,000 in 2002, and sold it for $181,000 earlier this year.

The residents contended the project and traffic would harm their neighborhood setting and quality of life, and decrease their property values, while putting the town under financial stress and driving up their property taxes.

The residents signed "indemnity agreements" with Westfarms' corporate parent, Michigan-based Taubman Co. The agreements, which later came to light in court proceedings, handed total control of the lawsuit to Taubman.

The lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, Thomas E. Katon, could not be reached for comment.
Construction Boom Blanketing West Hartford
By DANIEL P. JONES, Courant Staff Writer
February 16, 2007

WEST HARTFORD -- The town collected more than $2.4 million in building permit fees in 2006, far and away the largest amount ever, as builders large and small wielded saws and hammers across town at an unprecedented pace last year.

Although construction in the Blue Back Square development accounted for nearly $1 million of those fees, the remaining $1.43 million still set a record, easily surpassing the $1.17 million collected in 2004, the previous record year.

 "West Hartford is a desirable place these days and Blue Back put an exclamation on that," said Lewis Wise, a town resident and attorney who regularly represents developers in securing town approvals for projects.

"Developers are just scouring the town for any available parcels to develop," he said.

Mayor Scott Slifka said the town obviously expected a spike in permit fees in 2006 as a result of construction of the $159 million Blue Back Square development, which is scheduled to open this fall.

"But what we see as great news is that the bulk of the fees came from residents reinvesting in their own homes, and when it comes to Blue Back there's more to come," Slifka said. "It's not all here yet."

He said he is hopeful that unanticipated permit revenue can be put toward the coming annual budget and mitigate the effect of property revaluation on taxpayers' bills.

The permits that accounted for the record $2.43 million in fees collected last year represented $151 million worth of construction, said Ron Van Winkle, the town's community services director. During the previous record year in 2004, permits were issued for a total of $93 million worth of construction.

The town charges $16 per $1,000 of value of construction, so the permit for a $10,000 project costs $160, for instance. Last year, the town gave out nearly 4,300 building permits.

A number of factors contributed to the extraordinary boom. Low interest rates in 2005 and 2006 allowed people to borrow a lot of money to reinvest in their homes, Van Winkle said. "Housing sales were at record levels and people tend to fix them up" when they buy homes, he said. Small businesses also borrowed money to renovate spaces and expand.

"Finally, in addition, it has been a very good time for the West Hartford economy. New businesses have come in over the last few years," Van Winkle said.

In the town center, Blue Back Square construction continued. The town is financing its portion of the project - $48 million - through borrowing, and the tax and parking revenue is expected to more than cover the annual debt, leaving the town with extra revenue.

But the boom extended beyond the town center and touched nearly all areas of town.

At Corbin's Corner, for example, Best Buy expanded its store. The Trader Joe's chain opened a grocery store last year, having renovated the space previously occupied by two stores. The Red Robin chain, known for its burgers, opened a restaurant on the location previously occupied by Joe's American Bar and Grill. And in the Corbin's Corner parking lot, the Olive Garden chain built and opened a restaurant last year. The restaurants and the new store are regularly jammed.

In Elmwood, 148 condominiums of the Quaker Green development are under construction.

New stores and restaurants opened along New Park Avenue near Home Depot.

At Bishops Corner, Panera Bread opened a new eatery next to Staples, and the strip mall where the restaurant is located underwent a renovation to the facade. Nearby, 79 condominiums, the Somerset project, were built mostly last year.

And on Avon mountain, 16 luxury homes were built in the Old Stone Crossing development.

"It's been a huge year all over the place," Van Winkle said.

Although the West Hartford building boom is continuing, it is beginning to slow down primarily because of the slowing market for housing, he said. But even in the middle of winter, when contractors typically are not busy, there are still signs of strength.

January and February are usually slow times for the town's building department. But last Friday, a line of people waited to secure permits or to schedule inspections of the work they already had completed.

"Drive around and you see a lot of construction still going on," said Mark Landry, a foreman for Hartford-based CG Bostwick Co., which installs and repairs slate, tile and copper roofs.

Landry was busy on a recent afternoon working on the slate roof of a white colonial home on North Steele Road. Other workers from Newington-based House of Hanbury Builders were working on interior renovations of the home. David Beers, the Newington company's production manger, said House of Hanbury worked on more than 50 homes in West Hartford in 2006.

"Across the board I think West Hartford is a good town to live in," said Elizabeth Cech, who bought the North Steele Road home in December and is moving from Hartford. She said she couldn't have afforded a house in that neighborhood that was move-in ready. When she saw this one and realized she could purchase it and renovate it to her liking, she knew it was the right house for her.

"I knew whatever I put into that house I would get back," Cech said. "Number one, it's West Hartford, and it's an investment."
Blue Back: Make It Affordable
Hartford Courant
October 31, 2006

You can't just suddenly tell the developers of Blue Back Square to make changes and add affordable housing to the luxurious urban neighborhood now under construction in West Hartford Center.

Then again, why not?

The town screwed up big time when it failed to require affordable housing in the massive downtown redevelopment, a more than $160 million project that will make Blue Back a shining example in a state just waking up to the dangers of poorly planned overdevelopment.

Now the Blue Back developers are coming back to the town for some revisions in the half-completed project. It's time to fix a mistake and remind everyone that the days of West Farms-style sprawl are over.

Sure there's a lot of private money behind Blue Back, but the town of West Hartford is also a big partner in this groundbreaking "smart growth" project, selling a choice public parcel and assisting in the financing of some of the compact mixed-use development.

"There's a unique opportunity for a town to ask the developers to reconsider a plan for one that considers addressing housing affordability" said Diane Randall, director of Partnership for Strong Communities in Hartford. "There is a public interest in this - assuring that people who work in the town can afford to live there."

"We've got to help people get over the idea that affordable means housing for people who have no jobs," Randall told me.

It seems unbelievable that the town council neglected the affordable housing crisis when it approved Blue Back. But most towns in Connecticut are doing the same, even as young people are driven out of state, leaving employers unable to fill jobs.

From Goshen to Old Saybrook, communities are struggling with a market in which local residents can't afford to live in their hometowns. Connecticut has lost more of the 20-to-34-year-old population than any other state since 1990. Most towns have become unaffordable to a family making the median income, according to Home Connecticut, a coalition promoting more affordable housing.

West Hartford is no different, with working middle-class people unable to afford one of those $350,000 or $900,000 Blue Back condominiums. Adding affordable housing would be a small, symbolic gesture in a region looking for creative solutions.

It's the right moment for this because Blue Back's developers have asked West Hartford to make a change, replacing some of the pricey condos with loft-style apartments that will rent in the $1,500 to $2,000 range. In coming weeks, the town council - which has zoning authority over Blue Back - will consider the proposed change.

Adding apartments will make living here more affordable, said Blue Back partner Robert Wienner. "We are going to be offering rental units that people making $50,000 or $55,000 a year can afford."

A lack of entry-level housing, Wienner said, is "driving people out of state. Any major employer will tell you that."

That's why Blue Back must go further than building lofts with monthly rents of $1,500 to $2,000, figures that hardly qualify as affordable. West Hartford's town council must also develop a more comprehensive housing policy that goes beyond merely trying to squeeze a few affordable units out of Blue Back.

There's nothing ordinary about this development - Blue Back's developers have been handed one of the sweetest commercial opportunities in Connecticut by the citizens of West Hartford. They ought to step up and do the right thing. We all might learn something.

Rick Green's column appears on Tuesdays and Fridays. He can be reached at rgreen@courant.com
Vandalism At Blue Back Square
By Bob Wilson, News Channel 8
October 24, 2006

Police are investigating acts of vandalism in downtown West Hartford.  The Blue Back Square project that was targeted has been a lightning rod in the community.
 
"I was mad. I was really angry. This not a responsible action by a civic minded person," says Kelly Kennedy of West Hartford.

Blue paint tattooed on the side walks and buildings declaring bad progress for Blue Back Square. Last year in a controversial vote, the people of West Hartford voted for the commercial, residential and retail development in the center of town. After a year of building, the graffiti started showing up.

"It's pretty much a juvenile thing and it is what it is."

Anybody who does something like that, the law should look at them and they should punish them severely," says Bob LaPerla, a West Hartford merchant.  There are video cameras on the building next to Blue Back Square, and police are investigating.  Sgt. Tracey Gove of West Hartford, says,"It's an important case, especially with the community and all of the problems that have been going on for the business people. We are looking into it and we do have some leads."

The developer of Blue Back Square says this is a first for him. In dozens of projects he's never seen anything like it, but he knows building brings out the emotions.

Richard Heaps of Blue Back Square, says,"It's a very touchy thing to a community and I understand it, it's one of the reasons we like working on these projects because they touch something very real."

Business leaders in West Hartford were surprised by the graffiti around town, especially since building started more than a year ago.  LaPerla says,"I thought the town was past it, a lot of positive things are going on. It's being built, it's looking fantastic." 

Old reports...
Blue Back Condo Buyers Like 'Small City' Life
By TOM PULEO, Courant Staff Writer
December 24, 2005

WEST HARTFORD -- Barbara and Arthur Spivak enjoyed their years in "the country." Now the kids are grown and they want something new. Now Avon Mountain looks more like a barrier than a buffer.  

So they plan to leave West Simsbury, give up the 13-room house and 2 acres of privacy, and start anew in a condominium that sells for about $700,000 in West Hartford Center.

"We'd like a complete change now," said Barbara Spivak, 63, a fitness instructor. "I always wanted to move to New York or Boston, a big city, but I know that will never happen. West Hartford to me is the next best thing, a small city in a safe area.

"I think the center is one of the prettiest shopping centers in our travel that I have seen. I love the restaurants and I love the shops. And I'm excited about the [coming] theater because we do go to movies all the time."

Since October, prospective buyers have placed deposits on 27 of the 62 units available in the two buildings of "The Heritage" at Blue Back Square. One-bedroom condos start at about $350,000. Three, fifth-floor, three-bedroom units have been reserved at about $900,000, according to BBS Development, the partnership developing Blue Back Square with the town.

The Heritage is proving a hit among older folks, the so-called empty nesters, many from the Hartford region, who are willing to pay a premium to live above sidewalk shops in the region's strongest commercial district. The buyers cite West Hartford Center's distinctive feel, a sort of "Urban Lite" that offers city charm without the grit.

"It's all the advantages of city living without the disadvantages, the crime, the traffic," said Joyce Tarantino of McWilliams/Ballard, the Virginia-based sales and marketing firm retained by BBS Development. "It's a more convenient lifestyle. It's a healthy lifestyle; the temptation is not to get in the car all the time."

BBS broke ground this summer on the 20-acre Blue Back site just east of the center. The $159 million shopping, housing and entertainment complex will nearly double the size of the center, adding 30,000 square feet for retail use and 75,000 square feet for offices when it opens in about two years.

The Heritage is not for bargain hunters. The $900,000 price is nearly double what West Hartford Center's most desirable houses command these days.

The units are loaded like luxury cars. Standard items include gourmet kitchens with granite countertops, commercial-size appliances, deep-well commercial-style sinks and floors made of wide-plank wood and marble. The one-bedroom units offer 800 square feet of living space; the three-bedrooms offer 2,140 square feet.

Barbara Thayer of Prudential Connecticut Realty, who sells million-dollar homes in the Farmington Valley, said she doesn't consider The Heritage overpriced, and put a deposit on one herself.

"Empty nesters want amenities, more socialization," she said. "The time for McMansions is over. People want quality in a smaller space. They want good stuff."

The initial response has been strong enough for BBS to approach the town this month about adding another 50 condos, to 74 already approved, bringing the total to 124 in the two buildings. The changes would require approval by the town, which sold land to BBS and borrowed $48.8 million to help underwrite the project with a series of municipal improvements in the development area.

On its website, BBS touts The Heritage as the kind of "sophisticated urban address, like one in New York or Boston ... unlike anything else in the area." Ironically, the firm's managing partners wouldn't utter the word "urban" when they first proposed the project three years ago.

Ron Roy, 60, of Manchester, put a deposit on a two-bedroom unit that he will share with his small bichon frise powder-puff dog. An author of children's books, Roy said he likes the center's sidewalk tables and retail shops. He knows that BBS has signed leases with Barnes & Noble; an arts theater; and with Hartford Hospital and the Healthtrax fitness-club chain.

"I'll use the pool and gym every day," Roy said. "I go to the gym now, but I have to drive there. Anything I want to do, I have to get in a car. At Blue Back Square, I can walk to anything, the bank, the grocery store, dry cleaner, the post office, the dog groomer, the liquor store."

Roy said he will split his time between The Heritage and two other properties he owns - a cottage in Maine and a condominium in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

So far, The Heritage has not attracted young professionals - a demographic sought by BBS, a partnership based in Atlanta, New York and West Hartford.

The Spivaks' unit at The Heritage will face town hall and a courtyard wrapped inside a townhouse-style, brick building. Barbara Spivak said she grew up in Hartford's North End and has fond memories of "the city experience."

"Downsizing is going to be difficult," she said. "It's not that we want to do that. We just want to change our life environment. Just the fact that it's kind of a city life excites me."

At Sendoff, Officials High On Blue Back Square:  Ceremony Marks Start Of Project
September 28, 2005
By TOM PULEO, Courant Staff Writer

WEST HARTFORD -- Blue Back Square can't be as good or bad a project as adversaries have claimed as they traded insults for the past two years.  But looking ahead at the next two years, when they expect it will be completed, town leaders like the project's chances for success.

"We talk all the time about smart growth," Lt. Gov. Kevin Sullivan said Tuesday from the 20-acre construction site just east of South Main Street. "This is smart growth defined. Look it up in the dictionary. Smart growth from now on is West Hartford center."  Blue Back Square officially got under way in an afternoon ceremony under cloudless skies, four years after the idea was hatched.  The $159 million shopping, housing and entertainment complex will nearly double the size of the town center, adding 30,000 square feet of space for retail use and 75,000 square feet for offices, 100 condominiums, two parking garages, two new public plazas, an expanded town library and a renovated town hall.

The project has been supported by residents twice in townwide votes over the past two years. Mayor Scott Slifka called Blue Back a victory for the people who supported the project. It also has withstood several legal challenges spearheaded by rival Westfarms mall, which says the town is unfairly bolstering a competitor.  Robert Wienner, a managing partner with BBS Development, said he expects a smoother path ahead, with all buildings slated to open by the end of October 2007.

"It has been a long road, but we made it," Wienner said from under a white tent on the development site during the ceremonies.  One of the first priorities for BBS Development - a partnership comprising members in Atlanta, White Plains, N.Y., and West Hartford - is the Blue Back condominiums.  Next month, Virginia-based McWilliams/Ballard will open a Farmington Avenue marketing office to display elements of model units to prospective buyers. The 100 units will range in size from one to three bedrooms and in cost from $350,000 to $800,000-plus.

The first 62 units will be built on the south side of Memorial Road near Town Hall. Construction on a second condominium building begins in 2006.  About 800 people already have expressed a written interest despite very little marketing to date, the developers say.

"Condominiums in the middle of West Hartford center is a product that a lot of people want and no one has ever provided," said Wienner.

The developers have signed some impressive tenants to date, including national retailers Crate & Barrel, the upscale home furnishings company; Recreational Equipment Inc., the outdoor gear and clothing outfitter known as REI; and Fleming's Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar, which is planning a 7,000-square-foot restaurant.  Hartford Hospital and Healthtrax will operate a wellness center at the southwest corner of Memorial Drive and Raymond Road next to the police station Excavation has begun on the wellness center, which is expected to open in early 2007.

The town and BBS Development closed on the project this month when New York-based M&T Bank and the local branch of Sovereign Bank extended $125 million in construction financing for the project.

But the legal fight over Blue Back Square continues. This month, a Superior Court judge dismissed most of the challenges to Blue Back Square filed by a group of residents backed by Westfarms mall.

Blue Back Square opponents are pinning their hopes on the court's decision not to throw out the plaintiffs' contention that the town acted in an "arbitrary and capricious manner" in borrowing $48.8 million for Blue Back by selling municipal bonds to finance the town's portion of the project.

Jasyn Sadler, one of the three residents who filed the suit, said he expects to prevail on that count.

"This is going to be the exposure of a no-bid process," he said. "The fact they are so boldly moving ahead just reinforces that they are acting capriciously and arbitrarily. Clearly, we think it is completely irresponsible and, quite frankly, disrespectful not only of me but the entire Connecticut justice system."

Blue Back Financing In Place
September 10, 2005
By TOM PULEO, Courant Staff Writer
 
WEST HARTFORD -- The town and the developers of Blue Back Square have closed on the $159 million project and expect to break ground within days.

"As of next week, it's a construction site," Robert Wienner, a managing partner with BBS Development, said Friday.

Four years after planning began, lawyers for the town and BBS worked until almost midnight Thursday to finalize the complex financial deal underlying the housing, office and shopping district on 20 acres just east of the town center.  New York-based M&T Bank and the local branch of Sovereign Bank extended $125 million in construction financing for the project, Wienner said.  Blue Back still faces several legal challenges funded in part or whole by the parent company of Westfarms mall.

"The banks analyzed the litigation and concluded the loans were warranted," Wienner said.

Mayor Scott Slifka said he expects continued legal and procedural challenges to Blue Back.  "There will be more litigation, especially with an election coming up," he said. "But we're moving forward and this is a tremendous hurdle to get past."  The complex, which will include an art cinema, upscale shops, restaurants and luxury condominiums, as well as offices and a fitness center, is expected to open in October 2007.  Under the public-private venture, the town is borrowing $48.8 million to help underwrite key elements of the project, including two parking garages the town will own and operate.

At the closing, Weinner said, BBS finalized its purchase of private land parcels on the development site, executed its master agreement with the town and secured the construction loans.  In the past year, Blue Back opponents forced two townwide votes on the project but came up short both times, most recently in June, when voters reaffirmed their support by a ratio of more than 2-to-1.

The opposition has criticized the project's size and the town's contribution of land and loans. Westfarms' parent company, the Michigan-based Taubman Co., has accused the town of unfairly aiding a competitor.  But Blue Back supporters, led by the town council, say the complex will bolster the town center and upgrade the town hall, public library and board of education building on the development site.