🔒Headed into second term, Mayor Bronin has grander development hopes for Hartford

As he begins his second four-year term as Hartford’s chief executive, Mayor Luke Bronin says one of his top priorities will be attracting more private investment and development to the Capital City.

Such activity has ticked up since the Democrat first took office in 2016, with developers proposing or building hundreds of millions of dollars worth of mostly apartments but also some commercial and streetfront retail space.

In a recent interview with HBJ, hours before being sworn in for his second term, Bronin, 40, said those projects indicate perceptions of Hartford are improving, but he’s quick to note that most development in recent years has involved rehabilitating and renovating older buildings.

He said Hartford is now heading toward a new phase of economic development that will focus more on ground-up development, which the city has struggled to attract over the last decade.

There are early signs that a shift is underway, marked by a pending $26-million, 108-unit apartment development at the corner of Park and Main streets, and a recently completed 53-unit, $23-million apartment building at 81 Arch St., wrapping the final phase of the city’s Front Street District.

There are other vacant lots on deck for development, including the parcels surrounding Dunkin’ Donuts Park (for which Bronin said a development deal with RMS Cos. is imminent); roughly a dozen acres of parking lots around The Bushnell, where work has recently started on a new parking garage that’s expected to boost potential options for nearby ground-up development, including apartments, condominiums and retail space; and vacant lots at the corner of Albany Avenue and Woodland Street, where a developer is pursuing financing to construct a $20-million mixed-use project.

“I think it’s those types of projects that have the potential to contribute in a more transformational way to the neighborhoods around them,” Bronin said. “It’s a different kind of financing challenge, … the costs are higher and sources of capital are fewer, but that’s where we’re focusing a lot of energy and effort right now.”

The city’s $550-million debt bailout agreement with the state consumed much of his first few years in office, as did the city’s court battle with the former developer of Dunkin’ Donuts Park, whom Bronin fired in 2016 amid project delays and cost overruns.

While a mayor’s schedule is always busy, Bronin now has more room on his plate to help get bigger deals done, especially since most ground-up and other types of development in the city require property-tax deals to move forward.

“I think the budget crisis and the battle to get the ballpark back on track consumed the first couple of years, but for the last couple of years we’ve worked hard and I think made some good progress getting development started again, attracting investment for the first time in a long time,” he said. “For the second term we need to keep that work going.”

Headwinds remain

While Hartford is seeing some modest momentum, Bronin’s development aspirations face plenty of challenges.

Even after the debt bailout, the city’s finances remain razor thin, and Bronin said more budget cuts may be needed in the coming fiscal year. The city also continues to have the state’s highest mill rate, which has stifled private investment, making it necessary to offer developers state-backed loans and financing through the quasi-public Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA).

[Read HBJ’s special series exploring Hartford’s high commercial property tax rate, its impact on economic growth and ways to grow the city’s grand list]

Bronin has consistently refused to guess when the city’s 74.29 mill rate might be reduced by any significant amount. It’s likely to remain where it is “for the foreseeable future” until the state “fundamentally rethinks how we fund local government in Connecticut,” he said.

With new borrowing and spending growth both constrained, Hartford, which reports monthly to a state board that reviews its finances and spending decisions, is also depending on grand-list growth to balance its operating budgets without cutting core city services any deeper.

New developments in recent years will help, but meeting the city budget’s assumed annual grand-list growth target of 1.5 percent to 2 percent over the next few years may prove difficult.

Dependence on CRDA subsidies isn’t going away anytime soon, nor is the city’s need to offer developers tax breaks or tax-fixing agreements.

He said CRDA-backed projects in recent years have primed the pump for further development, which has included more than 1,000 new apartment units.

Those rentals have leased up quickly leaving a low vacancy rate and giving Bronin confidence that the ceiling is higher still.

“I think there were a lot of people who thought that if you put too many apartments on the market that the demand won’t be there, and that hasn’t been the case,” he said. “The constraint right now is supply, not demand.”