🔒Bordonaro: Return of office workers is important, but Hartford’s future hinges on recruiting new businesses, jobs

Media organizations, including the Hartford Business Journal, have focused a lot of coverage over the last few years on return-to-work trends and how they will impact and potentially reshape not only individual companies, but the cities and towns where they operate.

There’s been a fresh round of reporting in Hartford in recent weeks as many corporations — The Hartford, Travelers Cos., and CVS Health — finally send a larger share of their workers back to the office, for at least a few days a week in the new hybrid environment.

The fact that state government recently agreed to permanently allow most of its workers to telecommute part of the week has also ruffled the feathers of some downtown Hartford business owners, and even caught the attention of the Wall Street Journal, which wrote about the issue earlier this month.

One local media outlet had a headline that screamed: “Some downtown Hartford businesses worry about full post-pandemic recovery as thousands of state employees work at home.”

The reality is, companies and politicians searching for a “full” post-pandemic recovery in downtown Hartford will have to wait a while. Most businesses are adopting hybrid models, while others will have a larger share of their workforce operating remotely on a permanent basis.

Hartford’s full recovery depends less on politicians and small business owners begging companies to return their workers to the office and more on the city attracting new businesses.

That’s where the conversation and focus need to shift in the weeks and months ahead, especially as the pandemic continues to (hopefully) fade and companies become more willing to invest in the future.

Downtown Hartford’s Class A office vacancy rate at the end of the fourth quarter was 21.7%, according to brokerage firm CBRE, and it’s likely to move higher in the months and even year ahead.

About 25% of the center city’s 5.8 million square feet of Class A space was available at the end of December. For the most part, it won’t be employers that already have a downtown address filling that space. They are more likely to shrink their footprints as leases expire.

We desperately need new blood.

MetroHartford Alliance CEO David Griggs said he agrees with that sentiment. He’s also one of the major players involved with the city’s business recruitment efforts.

Since joining the Alliance in 2018, Griggs implemented a new strategic direction, pivoting the organization into more of a private economic development agency with a primary mission to lure jobs and talent to the region.

That’s no easy task.

The pandemic sidelined some of its work, but the Alliance in recent weeks has ramped-up its efforts. Griggs in March traveled to the United Kingdom — his first significant recruitment trip since the pandemic began — to build connections with that country’s strong financial services and insurance sector.

That’s the industry, unsurprisingly, that offers the greatest prospects for Hartford, Griggs said, so that’s where the Alliance is focusing much of its attention.

There’s already been a victory.

London-based insurtech company Wrisk recently announced it’s basing its new U.S. subsidiary in downtown Hartford. Griggs said the company will likely take up temporary space in the Boat Building on Constitution Plaza while it searches for a permanent home. Eventually the company will occupy about 20,000 square feet downtown, Griggs said, adding he’s hopeful more United Kingdom companies follow.

That may be more likely after Connecticut and the U.K. in March signed a cooperative agreement to create an InsurTech Corridor that’s intended to make it easier for tech firms to expand in both markets.

Besides insurance, professional services firms — think architects, engineers, accountants and lawyers — are the other likely targets for downtown Hartford. But the focus isn’t on wooing firms from the suburbs. If they want to come to Hartford, Griggs said, that’s fine, but the goal is to recruit from outside the state and attract foreign direct investment. (Hartford HealthCare is also significantly expanding its downtown presence and SunLife Financial announced last year it was relocating its Connecticut office from Windsor to Hartford, taking up 47,000 square feet in the Gold Building.)

Griggs said the Alliance will also be pressing Hartford’s more affordable cost of living and doing business compared to New York City and Boston.

How should we judge the Alliance’s effectiveness? Griggs said his goal is to attract five to 10 new companies to the city each year. Those vested in downtown’s future will be keeping score.

Griggs also pointed out the city’s Hart-Lift program will give life to as many as 40 new restaurants and retailers over the coming months. While they won’t directly help fill up empty office space, they will add to the city’s vibrancy — another key aspect of Hartford’s recovery.

To help replace some of the lost office workers, downtown Hartford also needs more residents. There’s hundreds of new apartments in the development pipeline. That’s a good thing.

Griggs said we should even rethink how we view downtown altogether. We should consider it less of a business district and more of a neighborhood.

It’s an interesting point, but without new businesses and jobs, it will be harder to attract residents. Part of the appeal of living in a city is being close to where you work.

The next few months are important for the city of Hartfod. We’ll begin to really understand the new normal in terms of just how many office workers the city can expect on a weekly basis. Hopefully companies return as many workers as possible, but ultimately they need to do what’s best in terms of managing their workforce and ensuring they offer the flexibility employees are demanding in an ultra-tight labor market.

Hartford’s focus must be on attracting new companies that think an urban environment will be critical to attracting future talent, even if they aren’t in the office five days a week.