Sean Teehan
At the tail-end of 2017, Hartford became one of only a handful of U.S. cities to do away with minimum-parking requirements for developers who want to construct or renovate buildings within its borders.
The move marked an aggressive step by city officials who want to transform Hartford from a commuter city that empties each day when white-collar workers leave office buildings for suburban homes, into a vibrant, walkable metropolis where more young professionals and others work, shop and live downtown.
An overabundance of surface parking lots in Connecticut’s Capital City has for decades been a drag on development, said Hartford Planning and Zoning Commission Chair Sara Bronin, one of the main proponents of no longer requiring developers to offer parking for newly built projects.
“A lot of times buildings were torn down to provide parking because of the zoning-code requirements, and now we have policies in place that will not force people to do that,” said Bronin, a UConn School of Law professor and architect who is married to Mayor Luke Bronin. “Ideally, we’d see the surface parking lots that we see in far too many places in the city be filled with buildings.”
Bronin isn’t the only one holding those hopes. Others, including city officials and economic-development experts, say Hartford should develop more parking lots and other vacant land into apartment, office, retail or other types of buildings in order to enhance Hartford’s vibrancy and help grow the grand list.
About 17 percent of downtown Hartford’s nearly 2 square miles is occupied by parking lots, said Norman Garrick, a UConn civil engineering professor who has studied the city’s parking and transportation for more than a decade. That’s about 80 percent more land dedicated to parking than in cities with similar populations, like Cambridge, Mass., and Arlington, Va.
In addition to wasting space that could be occupied by businesses or housing, Hartford is missing out on some $20 million a year it could collect in property taxes, if buildings were constructed on the lots, according to Garrick’s research.
Nixing the city parking requirement was seen as a positive step in promoting infill development and the rehabilitation of old office buildings into new uses. But less clear is how Hartford should go about replacing more parking lots with residential or commercial development, or if demand for it even exists.
Hartford’s high property tax rate — 74.29 mills, by far the highest in the state — is a major impediment to ground-up development, and most newly built projects in the city require public subsidies and/or tax breaks.
Efforts to force development — like taxing parking lots at a higher rate to make it less appealing to sit on vacant properties — would likely backfire on the city, leading developers to simply avoid Hartford, said Jonathan Putnam, executive director of commercial real estate broker Cushman & Wakefield Inc.’s Hartford office.Meantime, others say the city doesn’t have enough parking, arguing Hartford is and always will be a commuter city, despite hundreds of millions of dollars in mass-transit investment in recent years, including a new bus line and expanded rail line.
“We are the ultimate car culture,” said Hartford City Assessor John Philip. “Everybody drives in from the burbs.”
At least two major new parking garage projects are currently in the works — a $39 million, 1,007-space garage at the corner of Washington and Buckingham streets for state workers, which is nearing completion and doubling the capacity of a garage its replacing, and another $19 million garage on Clinton Street.
Ironically, both of those garages are seen as catalysts for a long-awaited development around The Bushnell Performing Arts Center that would eventually transform acres of adjacent parking lots into high-rise apartments/condos, office and retail space.
Competing with the burbs
Hartford didn’t develop its glut of center-city parking lots overnight. The city’s decadeslong move toward catering to cars tracks with a nationwide trend since car ownership became ubiquitous in post-war America, with millions of people leaving cities for the suburbs.
Hartford’s population dropped by more than 36,000 between 1970 and 2000, almost a quarter of its total inhabitants, according to state population data. During the same period, suburban towns in Greater Hartford saw significant population increases.
“It was a genuine fear that the cities were losing out to the suburbs, and the idea at the time was that we needed to be more like the suburbs in terms of having access to parking,” Garrick said.
Between 1960 and 2000, Hartford’s ratio of off-street parking to building area ballooned by 208 percent, according to one of Garrick’s studies.
Hartford is far from unique in this respect, said Jeffrey Tumlin, principal at San Francisco-based transportation planning firm Nelson/Nygaard. In an attempt to offer the same conveniences of the suburbs, cities across the country took steps to become more car-friendly, with many decimating their cityscapes.
Those moves ultimately proved ill-conceived and disastrous, Tumlin said.
“There are so many case studies of vibrant cities that completely destroyed their economic future by trying to suburbanize themselves,” Tumlin said. “The suburbs are always going to be able to compete for people who want suburbia; downtowns need to compete on their own strengths.”
Taxing land
While some say Hartford would be better off with less parking, figuring out how to fill empty lots is complicated.
In 2016, Hartford City Councilor John Gale advocated for a land value tax to encourage development. The idea was to make taxes on land high enough to severely reduce the profitability of parking lots.
“The goal of this is to discourage land banking,” Gale said. “[The tax would] flip taxation on its head, and say that it’s the land that has the value, and so we’re going to tax the land at a certain tax rate, and then the building that you put on it, we’ll tax at a lower rate.”
Gale dropped the idea amid pushback from parking-lot owners and others who said the new tax structure wouldn’t spark development, but he’s still critical of major Hartford-based property owners sitting on vacant land.
“[They’re] not willing to risk money in their hometown,” Gale said.
Philip, the city assessor, said he’s skeptical a land value tax would achieve Gale’s intended aim.
You need demand if you are going to go out and develop parking lots, and that is why I’ve always personally been suspicious of a land value tax,” Philip said. “I don’t see that spurring development. If demand is there it will be developed. If it isn’t, it won’t.”
At the same time, ground-up development in Hartford is largely a losing proposition right now because rents for commercial or residential units aren’t high enough to cover the cost of construction, according to Michael Freimuth, executive director of the Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA), a quasi-public development agency.
Most major new developments that do happen in the city require significant public subsidies or tax breaks, in addition to other funding sources like tax credits, said Freimuth, whose organization has invested close to $100 million of bonded state taxpayer money in recent years to help finance construction of more than 1,500 apartment units downtown.
He’s currently involved in a few proposed ground-up developments. One, in Hartford’s Downtown North neighborhood in the shadow of Dunkin’ Donuts Park, aims to convert parking-lot space into a mixed-use project.
The first phase, to be developed by Stamford-based RMS Cos., calls for a $46 million investment at 1212 Main St., which will include a 200,000-square-foot mixed-use building containing 200 living units, plus 11,000 square feet of retail and 259 parking spacesCRDA has pledged $12 million toward the development’s first phase, which is currently on hold until the city can settle a legal dispute with a former developer.
The other project is a long-awaited 108-unit apartment and retail development on 13 acres of vacant city-owned land at the corner of Park and Main streets. South Norwalk-based Spinnaker Real Estate Partners and Hartford’s Freeman Cos. are the developers of that project, which will include 125 parking spaces and an $8.5 million loan from CRDA.
Without CRDA funding, both projects likely wouldn’t be possible.
Freimuth is also involved with the two new parking garage projects near The Bushnell, which he said will actually benefit the city’s development ambitions by consolidating parking used by a variety of people — state workers, Bushnell patrons, visitors to state courts and offices, etc. — and then freeing up nearby surface lots that can be used for a planned mixed-use development.
It’s tough to say if the city has too much parking, Freimuth added.“There’s always a greater concern than a reality when it comes to parking,” he said. “It generally boils down to where and at what price.”
With few exceptions (Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco), most cities of any size will need parking, Freimuth said.“It’s how best to manage and optimize it,” he said.
Is there demand?
Freimuth and Putnam, the commercial realty broker, agree that demand for retail and office developments is weak in Hartford. Putnam estimates that market conditions required for a new office building won’t exist for at least another decade.The last time someone proposed a new office tower downtown was in 2008, when entrepreneur Abul Islam, CEO and founder of AI Engineers Inc., unveiled plans for a 13-story, $40 million high-rise to house his Middletown-based engineering firm and other tenants, as well as retail space. He even paid to knock down the former Broadcast House, a ‘60s-era structure that was the former studio-offices for WFSB Channel 3, to make room for his building.
Realty experts at the time said the tower would never get built. They were right. Not only was the timing bad — at the start of the Great Recession, which wreaked havoc on commercial real estate downtown — but the office vacancy rate and cost of construction were too high for the project to make sense. Islam pivoted at one point and proposed to build a new residential building instead, but the project never materialized.
That space remains a vacant lot.
The office vacancy rate for Class A office space downtown is currently 17.7 percent, which is still high and signals there’s not enough demand for more space, commercial brokers say.
Demand for residential units downtown is stronger, but again, the city’s high costs limit ground-up development, so it’s difficult to envision a significant number of new shiny apartment towers filling parking-lot space in the near term. (Apartment rents for CRDA projects are currently about $2.50 per square foot vs. $4 a square foot needed to support ground-up development.) Most CRDA-backed apartment projects that have come online so far converted old, existing office buildings into rentable, mostly market-rate living units.
Removing parking requirements from Hartford’s zoning code is a developer-friendly step, Putnam said, but it’s not nearly enough to start a development wave.
“I haven’t seen anyone put up a tower or a new building from scratch without getting some kind of subsidy,” Putnam said. “It’s pie in the sky until you get a financially sustainable model.”
Hartford comparisons
In his research, Garrick, the UConn professor, found several cities with populations and land areas similar to Hartford that have significantly reduced surface parking in the past few decades. And while they don’t make for perfect apples-to-apples comparisons, their stories are still relevant.
Between 1960 and 2000, Arlington, Va., a Washington D.C. suburb, shrank its ratio of off-street parking to building area by 52 percent, according to one of Garrick’s studies. Cambridge, Mass.’ ratio went down by 5 percent during that same time period, while Hartford’s skyrocketed by 208 percent.Both Arlington’s and Cambridge’s reductions were the result of decades-long efforts to favor buildings over parking and encourage the use of transportation options other than cars.
“Beginning in the 1970s we went through extensive long-range planning efforts to basically focus on transit-oriented development” around the D.C. Metro subway system, said Anthony Fusarelli, Arlington County’s assistant director of community planning housing and development. The goal, he said, was “to build the very walkable and active neighborhoods that we were seeking to achieve.”
Cambridge passed legislation in 1992 to de-emphasize driving and parking and reduce road congestion. It introduced measures like a pedestrian bicycle program, said Susanne Rasmussen, Cambridge’s director of environmental and transportation planning.
A few years later it passed another ordinance that required off-street parking owners to better manage their lots so that spaces don’t go unused, and include things like indoor bike parking to encourage cycling, Rasmussen said.
Both of those cities differ from Hartford because they are attached to a major subway system, and neither has ever been the kind of commuter city where people drive in for work, and drive home to the suburbs.Putnam said Hartford doesn’t “have a transit system that is going to replace cars anytime soon.”
However, Hartford is trying to encourage modes of transportation other than cars, Sara Bronin said. For example, planning and zoning is looking at the possibility of setting bike-parking requirements. Plus the CTrail Hartford Line that began making trips between Springfield, Mass., and New Haven, paired with the rapid transit bus system that runs between Hartford and New Britain, make it possible for more commuters to get around without a car. Putting more resources into such transportation efforts could shift habits over time, she said.
“We need investments from the state and our regional partners to invest in public transportation as well as biking networks that can allow people to get in and out of Hartford without cars,” Bronin said. “I think many people will find that commuting in and out of Hartford using a non-personal vehicle option is much more pleasant and safer than using a personal vehicle.”
Tumlin, the transportation-planning expert, said the fact that Hartford officials are looking for ways to reduce surface parking bodes well.
Cities like Grand Rapids, Mich., and Pittsburgh, currently have enviably dense and walkable downtowns, after starting at a more difficult position than Hartford currently finds itself, Tumlin said. And as a capital city at the center of a New England state, Hartford has the potential to develop into a lively, live-in city designed around people rather than cars.
“It’s the most urban place in the state,” Tumlin said. “Hartford really should be the great capital of Connecticut, and not just some weird financial center halfway between Boston and New York.”
Stonington PZC expresses concerns about Mystic Seaport hotel plans
Joe Wojtas
Mystic — Mystic Seaport Museum representatives offered more details Tuesday night about plans to demolish its Latitude 41 restaurant and construct a 26-room, 45-foot-tall boutique hotel and restaurant during a Stonington Planning and Zoning Commission hearing.
Although the museum presented conceptual plans for the hotel and a 6,000-square-foot, 1½-story research building and testing tank for the Global Foundation for Ocean Exploration, museum representatives stressed they were not yet seeking approval for these two projects as part of their application to make 10 other changes to their master plan, which specifies the uses allowed on the museum's campus. The hearing still was continuing late Tuesday night.
Seaport officials said their partners who would be constructing the hotel and research buildings have not yet completed the detailed drawings and specifications, and those will be the subject of a future application. Instead, Seaport officials said they were seeking to get feedback from the commission before filing a formal application.
The proposed hotel, which would be set further back from Route 27 than Latitude 41, would consist of a restaurant on the first floor, with hotel rooms on the second and third floors. A small building with a 27th guest room and a utility building would be located closer to Route 27, with a courtyard between them and the hotel.
Commission members also asked questions about the flood elevation of the hotel.
Museum landscape architect Chad Frost told the commission the restaurant-hotel would be two feet above the flood elevation of 11 feet, with the hotel rooms a floor above that. Commission member Fred Diechmann pointed out that the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has said it is not in favor of approving residential structures in flood zones with no water-dependent uses. He added approving a hotel at the Seaport could set a precedent for other projects, such as the controversial Smiler’s Wharf project, which had pitched a hotel.
In a letter, DEEP expressed a number of concerns about the Seaport hotel involving placing residential units in flood zones, intensification of use, preserving water-dependent uses and suggested the hotel be located on another section of the property not prone to flooding.
Museum attorney John Casey said Latitude 41 is already not a water-dependent use, docking will continue to occur behind the hotel and transient boaters, campers and students already stay overnight on the museum property. He said while the hotel would be 115 feet closer to the river, the hotel would be less likely to flood than Latitude 41 because it would have a higher elevation. As for moving the hotel to another location, Casey said most of the museum property is in a flood zone.
Jason Vincent, Stonington's planning director, pointed out that DEEP’s definition of flood requirements are different than the town’s regulations.
The museum zone where the Seaport is located allows buildings up to 35 feet tall, with an opportunity for the museum to seek approval for height of up to 45 feet.
Frost told the commission that it is clear Latitude 41 is coming to the end of its life and needs replacement. Although it is located in a historic district, he said Latitude 41 was built in the 1960s as a replica of a ship captain’s home and is not considered historic.
Commission member Shaun Mastroianni called it “a little sneaky” for the museum to come to the commission now without seeking approval.
“We’re trying to be anything but sneaky,” Casey said.
He said if the museum presented 10 benign changes to its master plan now and then in a few weeks came back with two much more substantial changes, residents would ask why the hotel and research center wasn’t mentioned during a hearing on less substantial changes. He added Seaport officials already have met with neighbors. Parking would be located across the street in the museum’s north lot with valet service in the courtyard. Access would be through an existing easement Latitude 41 uses now on the Mystic River Boathouse Park property.
Deichmann questioned how people carrying boats to the boathouse park would interact with vehicles accessing the hotel, calling it a “recipe for disaster.”
Commission member Lynn Conway requested the museum show what the hotel would look like from all sides when it submits its formal application.
The application also calls for signage updates with a net reduction in square footage of signs, with the decrease reserved for future use; an expansion of the Galley restaurant; a temporary relocation of the tent now used for the Mayflower restoration project to an area behind the Rossie Mill for artifact storage during construction; a handicap ramp for the Clift Block building; a 336-square-foot Catboat Shed expansion for exhibit space and boat-building classes; demolition of the gazebo due to safety issues; the previous sale of 41 Greenmanville Ave. to a private owner; the addition of solar panels on the roof of the Rossie Mill, which will not be visible from the street; relocation of north and south restrooms, with the north restrooms demolished and incorporated into the new hotel building. The south bathrooms will be relocated and reconstructed to be more usable to visitors.
Fairfield Public Works officials, construction company owner arrested in fill pile case
Rachel Scharf and Daniel Tepfer
FAIRFIELD — Two town employees and the owner of a local construction company have been charged with illegally dumping hazardous waste on town property.
Superintendent of Public Works Scott Bartlett and Director of Public Works Joseph Michelangelo were arrested Monday.
Bartlett is accused of accepting bribes to allow Julian Enterprises to dump truckloads of material containing lead and PCBs on property adjoining the town’s public works garage on Richard White Way.
Bartlett, who was recently suspended with pay, was charged with three counts of first-degree larceny, conspiracy to commit larceny, second-degree forgery, conspiracy to commit forgery and receiving kickbacks, as well as violation of solid waste facility requirements, illegal dumping of waste, conspiracy to commit illegal dumping of bulky/hazardous waste and illegal discharge of materials into waters.
“These are just allegations, and he is presumed innocent,” said his lawyer, Frederick Paoletti Jr.
Michelangelo was charged with second-degree forgery, conspiracy to commit forgery and illegal dumping of bulky/hazardous waste, as well as conspiracy to commit illegal dumping and illegal discharge of materials into waters.Jason Julian, co-owner of Julian Enterprises, was arrested Tuesday. He was charged with three counts of first-degree larceny, conspiracy to commit larceny, second-degree forgery, conspiracy to commit forgery and receiving kickbacks, as well as violation of solid waste facility requirements, illegal dumping of waste, conspiracy to commit illegal dumping of bulky/hazardous waste and illegal discharge of materials into waters“My client has been falsely accused and is looking forward to his day in court when justice will prevail,” said his lawyer, Thomas G. Cotter.
All three were released on promises to appear in court, pending arraignment in Superior Court on Wednesday morning.
The Fairfield Police Department released a statement Tuesday afternoon confirming the arrests.
“The primary focus of this investigation was to ensure the safety and well-being of the town and all of its residents,” the statement read. “This investigation has troubled all of us within the organization, as we know it will with the community as well. This case is a testament to the hard work and dedication of the men and women of the Fairfield Police Department.”
First Selectman Michael Tetreau announced Tuesday evening that in addition to keeping Bartlett on administrative leave, he has placed Michelangelo on leave.
“The action I have taken to place Messrs. Michelangelo and Bartlett on administrative leave should not be interpreted as a judgement about the allegations which have been made,” Tetreau said. “However, given the facts that have come to light, and the need to ensure that our Department of Public Works can continue to serve the citizens of Fairfield with the quality of services they have come to expect, this is the right step for Fairfield’s residents and for our Public Works employees.”Tetreau assigned the interim day-to-day management of the town’s Public Works operations to Director of Conservation Brian Carey and designated all supervisory engineering responsibilities and oversight to Bill Hurley, the town’s Engineering Manager. Permanent management appointments, he said, will be considered at a later date.
Tetreau also reaffirmed the professionalism of the town and its employees.
“The employees of the town of Fairfield are as talented, committed and professional as any you will find in municipal government,” Tetreau said. “We will not let this episode tarnish the reputation of our town.”
This is the latest development in a criminal investigation launched in 2017 to probe allegations of misconduct at the fill pile. Last month, police raided Julian’s offices in Fairfield in pursuit of evidence that Bartlett accepted bribes and favors from the company.
“Statements of town employees suggest that Bartlett was influenced by Julian Management through benefits provided him and/or his son, who is an employee of Julian Development and support the belief that Julian Development influenced Scott Bartlett by providing him with benefits,” according to court documents in the case. “Bartlett allowed Julian Development to accept prohibited/contaminated materials at the Fairfield facility, making the operation of the facility highly profitable for Julian Development.”
On Nov. 29, 2016, according to court documents, Cindy Knight, president of Logical Environmental Solutions, was at the processing facility when she saw three Julian dump trucks unload piles of a gray-brown granular material at the extreme back of the site. She took samples of the material which were tested and found to contain levels of PCBs six times greater than the state allowable level and lead, double of what is considered hazardous.
The town is also in the midst of legal proceeding to resolve a yearslong civil disagreement with Julian, which went into arbitration in July following lawsuits from both sides. The arbitration hearing was postponed due to developments in the criminal investigation. According to Tetreau, the town will continue to pursue its claims when arbitration resumes in September.
Waterbury chooses familiar developer for Odd Fellows building
MICHAEL PUFFER
WATERBURY — A New York investment duo who redeveloped two large buildings downtown is the new partner with the city on a third project – this one backed by $10 million from state taxpayers.
Mayor Neil M. O’Leary has agreed to sell Green Hub Development the roughly 60,000-square-foot, five-story, “Odd Fellows” building at 36 North Main St.
The city claimed it from a New York investor in 2013 for unpaid taxes and utilities. It’s been empty for more than a decade and is in rough shape.
Ceilings have fallen, paint is chipped throughout, water is leaking into the building and plants have been growing in the carpet on the first floor.
At the request of Waterbury officials, the state agreed last September to borrow $10 million to help defray redevelopment costs.
An agreement will have to be reached between the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development outlining conditions that need to be met before money is released.
The city advertised the building along with this big state enticement. Four entities responded.
The city mailed a notification letter to Green Hub Development on Friday. Green Hub was one of two finalists.
A selection panel of current and former city staff, as well as Greater Waterbury YMCA Executive Director Jim O’Rourke, unanimously picked Green Hub. O’Leary signed off on that selection.
The runner up, Bridgeport-based Primrose Co., proposed to build commercial space on the first floor and about 20 apartments on the upper floors, O’Leary said.
It was a good offer, O’Leary said, but city officials favored Green Hub’s plan for an entirely commercial redevelopment that would fill the building with employees, more people with disposable income.
O’Leary said he’d like something akin to Green Hub’s recent redevelopment of the former Howland-Hughes Department Store on Bank Street.
The massive building sat largely empty for decades. Today, Post University leases space for about 450 office workers inside.
“I think a better return on the investment for the merchants in downtown Waterbury who have been hanging on by their fingernails for decades is something like what’s happening with Post University and Howland-Hughes,” O’Leary said. “In other words, more bodies downtown.”
Green Hub is the development entity created by New York City financier Louis Forster and his brother-in-law, Joseph Gramando.
The pair has been active in Waterbury since 2016, when they bought a two-thirds stake in the Brown Building. Located on East Main Street by the downtown University of Connecticut campus, it’s another massive downtown building that had long gone underused.
The upper two floors of the Brown Building once bustled with doctors, dentists and other offices. But they cleared out long ago, leaving empty offices and dusty corridors. Green Hub has rebuilt the upper two floors into dormitory-style housing for up to 90 college students.
Green Hub and the city won’t reveal all of the details until a final deal is negotiated. City officials declined to say how much Green Hub will pay for the building, or release the responses to the city’s advertisement.
State law allows this to be kept under wraps until a deal is completed. City officials say the information will be made available publicly before the Board of Aldermen is asked to ratify a deal.
Gramando said he hopes to conclude a deal within two months, allowing him to repair the roof and seal the building before winter. He would then strip the interior to show prospective tenants the possibilities.
He said he has three solid prospects interested in leasing the entire building. He said repairs could be completed within two years.
“It will be somebody that will bring at least 150 employees and take every floor except maybe the ground floor,” Gramando said.
Gramando said he expects the entire project to cost somewhere between $13 million to $14 million, about the same as the renovation of the larger Howland-Hughes building.
Green Hub received $7.7 million in state assistance for the Howland-Hughes project and stands to receive up to $10 million for this project.
It helps keep the lease cost low enough to attract a good tenant, Gramando said.
O’Leary recalled the city very nearly auctioned the property for unpaid taxes. He said he stumbled upon the auction during his first week in office in December 2011 and was told about a pending offer for $300,000.
It seemed far too low, O’Leary said, so he pulled the property off the auction list.
“When everything is revealed, I think everyone will agree we did the right thing,” O’Leary said.