After more than three years of John Palmieri’s guidance, Hartford is suddenly in the market for a new redevelopment and revitalization chief.
Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez last week confirmed rumors that Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino has hired Palmieri to lead the Hub’s redevelopment efforts.
Boston’s wooing of Palmieri shows the kind of attention he’s gained as executive director of the city’s Redevelopment Agency.
He became the city’s point man for redevelopment in March 2004, and his tenure has seen a flurry of development activity, including the opening of the Convention Center and new luxury housing downtown, along with the launch of ambitious projects such as Hartford 2010 and smaller-scale efforts such as streetscape improvement .
In losing Palmieri, Hartford will need to get a new revitalization head in the midst of projects including Hartford 2010 and the Front Street Development, along with less-publicized projects such as a town center development set to go at Albany Avenue and Woodland Street in northern Hartford.
“If John were to leave for Boston, it would be a huge loss for the department,” said Mark McGovern, who works under Palmeiri as director of economic development.
Ken Greenberg, a principal with the Greenberg Group and leader of the city and the MetroHartford Alliance’s Hartford 2010 project, said losing Palmieri wouldn’t throw the project into crisis mode, but it would require some adapting after the loss of a strong player in the project.
High Praise
“John was great. He was really a strong and articulate advocate for the city’s interests,” Greenberg said.
And in Palmieri’s case, a job offer isn’t surprising: “In the life of cities, when you have good people, a certain amount of rotation occurs.”
Palmieri was recruited to Hartford from Charlotte, N.C., a boomtown grappling with sprawl – “dealing with the kind of issues Hartford had to deal with 250 years ago, probably,” he said. By contrast, Hartford has an entirely different set of issues, such as reclaiming downtown and making use of limited space. He also stepped into a revamped organization, the newly incarnated Hartford Redevelopment Agency, which combined previously disparate housing and community development efforts. It was a different scene from North Carolina, but one that returned him to more familiar turf.
“The urban cities of the northeast are places I feel more at home working in, you know?” he said. Originally from Hoboken, N.J., Palmieri had spent 18 years working for the development department in Providence, R.I. He left in 2002, after it had become the oft-cited shining example of a turnaround city.
Boston now represents a chance to use the same skills sets required of most northeastern city planners, just on a much larger scale, he said.
Oz Griebel, president and CEO of the MetroHartford Alliance, said Palmieri’s appointment was a major coup for the city, but that many now-completed projects were already underway when Palmieri came aboard. As new head of the redevelopment agency, Palmieri was able to keep projects afoot.
Griebel said he stands out at creating connections with the neighborhoods and business community, balancing the needs of both in assessing development plans; Palmieri has had tactical successes, he said, but the ability to form relationships and manage multiple groups’ needs has been the biggest asset.
But Palmieri’s tenure has had its share of failures, such as the loss of ING to Windsor and MetLife to Bloomfield. Palmieri said that despite the city’s efforts, they couldn’t combat economic forces or the companies’ goals, and lost those particular battles.
Palmieri said he would stay on for a couple months to finish up some projects and work to create a smooth exit on others. He was confident that Hartford would find a competent and aggressive replacement, and said he’d enjoyed working with the city.
“I’ll leave with a heavy heart,” he said.