What 'vision' do employers, officials have for Hartford?

Hartford is home to the state government, some of the state's largest private sector employers and an abundance of cultural attractions. Now, local business leaders and public officials want to harness those assets to spur a new era of vitality in Connecticut's capital city.

Members of the Vision Committee, a group formed last year that includes the CEOs of property and casualty insurer The Hartford and the Hartford HealthCare system, as well as the mayor of Hartford, held a press conference Thursday to outline their goals for the city's revitalization. The committee's work is still in a formative stage, but it is clear that the panel will focus on efforts to boost the city's downtown.

"We want to use our energies and resources to accelerate redevelopment, making Hartford more vibrant at its core, which will then benefit residents in the neighborhoods, across the city," Christopher Swift, The Hartford's CEO and chairman, said at the press conference, which was held at the company's headquarters, in the city's Asylum Hill neighborhood.

The Vision Committee is working with an advisory council that includes approximately 50 people from a wide range of public- and private-sector organizations in the Hartford area. In addition, the committee has hired Streetsense, a real estate-focused design-and-strategy firm, to conduct research and guide the group's work. A "key early finding" of the research is that Hartford generates "episodic" economic activity from events such as sports games, but the output is "not consistent," Swift said.

"We are looking at what it would take for downtown to become a more active place with more energy, more retail and more residents," Swift said. "We will consider how to attract public and private investment, with the goal of bringing people downtown on a regular basis, shifting from episodic to consistent activity, with people walking, shopping, staying in hotels, visiting for an event, which would then lead to greater confidence for investment dollars in the future."

A number of recent and ongoing development projects in and around the downtown have helped attract newcomers. But sustained population growth remains difficult for the state's fourth-most-populous city. In 2024, the most-recent year of available state data, Hartford had an estimated total of about 122,000 residents, up about 2,500 from 2023. But the total was still lower than tallies of about 124,000 in 2000 and nearly 125,000 in 2010.

"This is a day in which we turn the page on a new chapter in which community leaders, civic leaders and corporate leaders are standing together to build a vision for the next phase of Hartford," said Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam, a Democrat who has served in his current position since January 2024. "That will have an impact on what our downtown looks like. It will also have an impact on what housing looks like in this city, amidst a housing crisis... I hope it will have an impact on what employment looks like in this city, with pathways for folks from every neighborhood to come into doors just like this, to build careers, build wealth all across the city."

In June, the committee is expected to issue a plan based on its findings. At that point, it would also share details about proposed funding for its recommendations.

"We do envision, sort of, a public-private partnership," said Swift, who has served as The Hartford's CEO since 2014. "But we do recognize that budgets are tight, money's a scarce resource. But I think we can be creative with structures that other communities have created such as TIF (tax increment financing) zones, private capital and public money coming into various projects. That will all be part of the long-term vision."

The Hartford, which has about 4,000 employees based in Hartford, and other large companies have a long history of civic engagement in its namesake home city. In 2017, The Hartford, along with two other Hartford-based insurance giants, Aetna and Travelers, made a combined $50 million pledge across five years to support the city. Travelers CEO and chairman Alan Schnitzer and Aetna President Steve Nelson are two of the Vision Committee's other members.

Hartford Public Library was a key nonprofit partner in that earlier initiative, and the organization's CEO and president, Bridget Quinn, is a member of the Vision Committee's advisory council. The library is to fully reopen on June 1, after more than three years of repairs and renovations, following a major flood in December 2022.

"Because public libraries are free and accessible public spaces, they create welcoming environments that encourage social interaction, civic participation, improve social determinants of health and combat the loneliness epidemic," Quinn said.

Meanwhile, some large organizations such as Hartford HealthCare are expanding their local footprints. Hartford HealthCare CEO Jeffrey Flaks cited the 2022 opening of the organization's downtown headquarters, at 100 Pearl St., where about 700 employees are based.

"We've had an extraordinary experience," said Flaks, who has served in his current position since 2019. "We continue to expand and grow within Pearl Street, and we've seen the neighborhood, community and downtown environment happening right around us."

Flaks also cited a number of capital projects at Hartford Hospital.

"We have more than 10 properties under construction on the Hartford Hospital campus," Flaks said. "We're rebuilding historic buildings, we're rebuilding so many different properties, so that we can repurpose them and revitalize them for future usage."

During a question-and-answer session at the end of the press conference, one of the attendees, Larry Roeming, moderator of the First Church of Christ in Hartford, said that he would like to see better promotion of the city's strengths.

"Hartford should have a slogan like, 'Great things are happening. Shh, don't tell anyone,'" said Roeming, a Hartford resident since 1985. "For the entire time I've been in Hartford, I wanted to have a better mechanism of getting the word out."

Arulampalam responded that the city created last year an office of arts, culture and entertainment and an office of marketing.

"We are working on a plan right now... to bring together all the great things happening in the city of Hartford and market them in a better way than I think we have in the past," Arulampalam said. "I hear entirely your frustration, and I've felt it as well, as a Hartford resident."