🔒Hartford’s $250M DoNo development nears groundbreaking

The Stamford developer that rebooted Hartford’s Goodwin Hotel is weeks away from starting construction on a $250-million mixed-use development in the downtown area surrounding Dunkin’ Donuts Park.

Hundreds of construction workers are expected to descend on the first phase of the so-called Downtown North (DoNo) development on “Parcel C” along Main Street in the next month or so, RMS Cos. founder and CEO Randy Salvatore said in a recent interview.

Earlier this year, Salvatore suggested the development could kickstart in April, but the COVID-19 pandemic and other red tape associated with a land-use agreement, lending, equity and appraisals delayed the project’s commencement, said Michael Freimuth, executive director of the quasi-public Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA).

The first phase, projected to cost $56 million, includes a 270-unit apartment building with 11,000 square feet of retail and “flex” space and a rear 330-space parking garage. Salvatore said 10% of the rentals will be priced for affordable housing. The apartment-garage complex, backed by an $11.8-million low-cost loan from CRDA, is being built on a surface parking lot in the shadows of the Red Lion Hotel. An estimated 18 months of construction means the apartments would come online in spring 2022, Salvatore said.

A newly released rendering of the four-story apartment building shows a mostly gray facade with units featuring tall windows and balconies overlooking the ground-level retail corridor.

Salvatore, who the city selected as its preferred developer for the DoNo properties, moved forward with the project a year ago after a Superior Court judge discharged liens on the parcels around Dunkin’ Donuts Park. In March, RMS inked a development agreement with the city to build the housing and retail project on city-owned land.

While the pandemic could pose logistical challenges for construction, Salvatore said the crisis may spur an urban exodus to smaller cities like Hartford.

“In the long term, I think Hartford can be a real viable option, even more so today than perhaps pre-COVID, for companies and individuals moving out of Boston, New York, or other major cities,” he said. “We are still really bullish about Hartford today.”

Upon completion, the DoNo development is slated to house up to 1,000 apartments and additional retail and parking space on four different properties. The hope is that the new brick-and-mortar stores would be spurred, in part, by the Hartford Yard Goats’ $71-million ballpark, which typically draws about 400,000 fans a year. The team’s 2020 season was canceled due to the pandemic.

Salvatore envisions the mixed-use quadrant attracting a variety of “community retailers” including restaurants, coffee shops and other like-minded gathering spaces.

“Those are the types of retail that work in urban areas right now because those don’t compete against the Amazons and other online retailers,” he said. “I think there is always demand for people to eat, gather and for the community to come together.”

Some question marks

But the addition of a supermarket, which advocates have long argued would fill a major need on the North End cusp of downtown, is still far from being included in the final plans for development on Parcel B, or on city-owned land around the historic Keney Memorial Clock Tower, officials say.

The Hartford Community Loan Fund, a nonprofit community development financial institution, has been a longtime supporter of the project and continues to push its $18-million plan for a supermarket and nearby nutrition counseling office in the DoNo area. The potential store has also been approved for an $8.5 million CRDA loan.

Salvatore and Freimuth both agree there are a number of challenges in designing and operating a grocery store downtown. Questions surrounding signage, accessibility, parking and where to put shopping carts and loading docks, among other obstacles, must all be fleshed out before RMS secures a grocery operator, they said.

“What we hear in the market is that there is definitely demand for a grocery store in this area,” said Salvatore, whose group has not projected a cost for the potential supermarket. “So I’m still very optimistic that we will be able to do that, and excited because that will be the anchor to the development, and that will be what really acts as a connecting force to bring people from other towns.”

RMS, which also counts New Haven’s Blake Hotel as one of its recent redevelopment successes, is currently developing conceptual plans for the second phase of development on Parcel B at the corner of Main and Trumbull streets, he said.

Freimuth said CRDA-backed loans ranging from $10 million to $12 million could be available for each of DoNo’s second, third and fourth phases of construction depending on State Bond Commission approvals in the coming years.

Those dollars, in addition to the project’s entire estimated price tag, could change depending on how much it might cost to tear down a former Windsor Street data center on Parcel D, and salvage underground parking there.

An ongoing study is examining whether it’s worth maintaining the parking garage, but there haven’t been any “significant discussions” on what to do with the decades-old data center, Salvatore said.

“There’s a lot of uncertainties in the world right now, so it’s very difficult to predict six years with the changes that are happening on a daily basis,” he said of planning other phases. “With COVID, everything needs to be done a little bit differently in terms of interacting with people, and in terms of construction.”

Joe Cooper is HBJ’s web editor and real estate writer. He pens “The Real Deal” column about commercial real estate.