Hartford officials are working to pull together funding for the demolition of a five-story, concrete bunker of a building occupying 3 acres behind the city’s Dunkin’ Park minor league ball field.
Removing the former data center from the city block between Trumbull and Morgan streets will allow Stamford-based RMS Cos. to include the property in an ongoing mixed-use development aiming to add about 1,000 apartments and new commercial spaces on city-owned properties around the ball field.
Officials from the city and state Department of Economic and Community Development recently toured the 1968-vintage building at 150 Windsor St., with RMS Cos. CEO Randy Salvatore to get a better handle on potential demolition costs. The city is preparing to apply for state brownfield funding for the property in January.
“We are looking at potentially financing demolition of that project using brownfields grants if the costs of demolition can be value-engineered,” Mayor Arunan Arulampalam told the Capital Region Development Authority Board of Directors at an Oct. 17 meeting.
RMS completed the first, 270-unit complex of its “North Crossing” development in 2022, building on what had been a parking lot at 1212 Main St. Now, the company is performing site work to prepare a 5-acre lot just southwest of the ball field – known as
“Parcel B” – for the next phase of the North Crossing development.
The latest phase, which Arulampalam said he hopes will be completed by the end of 2025, will include construction of a 227-unit apartment building and a 541-space parking garage. The following phase will include construction of a 304-unit apartment building, also on Parcel B, Arulampalam said.
Hartford Economic Development Director Patrick Pentalow said the city is working to get an updated demolition quote for the shuttered data center in preparation of a request for state funding. The city intends to bolster its application by pledging to spend $1 million in previously approved state “Urban Act” funding toward that endeavor, he said.
Pentalow said the city is considering multiple state grant programs to source funding for the data center demo, which is located at a site known as “Parcel G.”
Salvatore said redeveloping the data center property as part of his ongoing North Crossing project will connect it with his planned redevelopment of the 12.7-acre former Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute campus.
Salvatore paid $3.8 million for the campus last November.
Salvatore has floated a tentative concept that would transform the RPI property into five apartment buildings with 1,232 total units. Salvatore has stressed that vision could change to incorporate commercial space for businesses and nonprofits.
If RMS moves to build on the data center site, it would do so under a 98-year lease of the property from the city, as it has done with the other city-owned parcels around Dunkin’ Park, Salvatore said.
“The location is the connector between the RPI site and the existing developments we have done,” Salvatore said. “To develop something which brings those together and creates a cohesive neighborhood is an opportunity.”