The city of Hartford Monday fired Centerplan, the original developer of Dunkin’ Donuts Park, from the planned development around the minor league baseball stadium.
Mayor Luke Bronin said Middletown-based Centerplan, DoNo Hartford LLC, and the associated entities created to develop the land in and around Dunkin’ Donuts Park have been dismissed from the project. The city now intends to find new developers with the interest and capital to invest in the downtown north neighborhood.
“Centerplan should never have been chosen to build the ballpark, and their lack of capacity and experience was compounded by a lack of honesty and transparency,” said Bronin. “In failing to deliver the ballpark on time, failing to do the work well, and failing to pay numerous subcontractors, Centerplan violated the development agreement that covers the surrounding parcels. By terminating the Master Development Agreement with Centerplan today, we hope that we can begin to move forward with finding a strong and capable partner for the next phase of development that is so essential to the City of Hartford.”
The city also filed counterclaims to Centerplan’s lawsuit, which accused the city of wrongful termination from the stadium project. The city alleges that Centerplan engaged in fraud, both in its inducement of the city to begin the stadium project and its conduct after the project got underway, and civil theft during the course of construction of the stadium.
In its countersuit, the city alleges that Centerplan falsely certified that it had paid approximately $8 million to subcontractors in order to collect reimbursement from the Hartford Stadium Authority. The city alleges that Centerplan never paid the contractors and vendors — instead paying for its own debt on other projects unrelated to the city.
