mamul

Anyone heard anything about City Tavern closing on East Boulevard? I saw a small blurb on charlotte.com about it.

Somebody call him now and please ask him to take over Front Street.

I think everyone at UP would love to see some nice tall upscale condos/apartments with tons of upscale retail and commercial, but I just don't think it is realistic in the current economic climate. Large condos will never get the proper financing and I doubt anybody has faith in a large scale aprtment buidling until H21 gets more filled up. It needs to be done on a human scale, something like Newbury Street in Boston; it doesn't need to be such high density in order to be succesful and in order for people to walk it. If Front Street stole the Newbury Street model I believe it would be the most succesful without being unrealistic. I do think that if Nitkin isn't going to do it correctly he needs to walk away and walk away now. The worst case scenario is a strip mall on that site.

I would be very scared of an idea that includes people connecting to the Berlin-New Britain busway. I don't think many people are excited about commuting by driving to a train station and then switching from the train to a bus at a tiny train depot before riding into the city and walking or taking a different bus to their job. Any succesful plan would need to include the commuter train continuing on to Hartford or connecting to the springfield-hartford-new haven line. I would be much more excited about high speed rail service going to Hartford than commuter rail service. If one could place a nice High Speed rail line going from Boston-Hartford-New York then I think Hartford would see a super return on that and it would do more to ease the interstate traffice through New England than any commuter rail would. Unfortunately the Acela is still too slow because it isn't a dedicated line...and of course misses Hartford which would be nice.

Agreed. I would actually be okay with scrapping the residential, for now, if they vastly increased the retail/office component. With that said, I cannot imagine how retail in that area can be succesful without a large residential component. Large swaths of retail in Hartford without increased residential will only further the 9-5 image of the city. Granted, I think if you are only going to build 115 apartments you really might as well just not build any. That is such a joke compared to the two residential towers originally planned for this area. I am slightly shocked that Larry G or the Wolman's never took this area over ... I am starting to fear that Nitkin is going to build a strip mall. This type of development looks like something that Larry G would just be drooling over the chance to take a stab at as if it was succesful it would like increase the value of his other properties in town, much like his arena plan.

Did anyone catch the news about Ryanair planning flights from Europe to the east coast US for under $15 US to Baltimore and other 2nd tier cities such as Providence? If Bradley could work themselves into that list of US cities it would do wonders for the greater Hartford area.

This actually does not prove that the "groundbreaking" was a way for Rell to get credit for something she had no part in. This is effectively an op/ed article talking about the unusual circumstances surrounding the forced groundbreaking. I think it is very common that a groundbreaking takes place well before the cranes move into place. Groundbreakings are purely ceremonial photo opportunities for candidates and developers alike. Regardless of the intent by Rell and others I do think it was in poor taste for the Courant to not even mention the event after 8 years of covering Meeting House Square and Front Street on a nearly daily basis, as it was still a monumental and significant occurance for the project. It signified that the city, the state, and a developer are all finally on the same page to actually get something built there. The Couarnt could easily have covered the story without any political spin and I believe they did a disservice to folks like us who are interested in the day-to-day progress at Front Street.