Mayor Pedro Segarra and other city officials braved bitter cold Monday to attend a topping-off ceremony for the $77 million Public Safety Complex to open by yearend on High Street, on the northern edge of downtown.
Work crews hoisted into place the last steel beam festooned with an American flag and an evergreen tree to symbolize the project’s progress with no loss of life and good luck for the future occupants.
Sixty Hartford residents are among the project’s workers.
The former school building site will house police, fire, and emergency services, which includes the 9-1-1 dispatch center.
The more centralized location will improve response times throughout the city.
The project is also the cornerstone of connecting all the development progress in the Downtown, Upper Albany, Clay Arsenal, and Northeast neighborhoods— including the University of Hartford, the Albany Avenue branch of the Hartford Public Library, Capital Prep Magnet School and the tearing down of the H.B. Davis “Butt Ugly” building.