A major mixed-use development project is underway that will give Bristol a long-awaited and dedicated downtown center.City officials and developers gathered in June to kick off the start of the multiphase, mixed-use Center Square Village project at 111 North Main St., being built by Southington-based Carrier Construction.The project will bring 104 market-rate apartments in two […]
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A major mixed-use development project is underway that will give Bristol a long-awaited and dedicated downtown center.
City officials and developers gathered in June to kick off the start of the multiphase, mixed-use Center Square Village project at 111 North Main St., being built by Southington-based Carrier Construction.
The project will bring 104 market-rate apartments in two buildings to a central downtown area with 15,600 square feet of commercial space, primarily for restaurants.
The development will occupy four semi-vacant downtown parcels, with more than 200 parking spaces for residents, employees and visitors.
That project, along with existing medical facilities and incentives for new businesses, will enable a true “live, work, play” destination, according to Bristol Mayor Jeff Caggiano.
Reclaiming its identity
Rebuilding a true downtown Bristol is an effort that has been decades in the making.
The Hartford County city of roughly 60,600 residents was transformed following the Great Flood of 1955, when federal money intended to revitalize and renew downtown was used, in part, to take down several iconic buildings, widen roads, redistribute Main Street and build a new City Hall on North Main Street.
The Bristol Centre Mall was built in the downtown area in the 1970s, but later closed and was razed in 2008.
“So, we’ve had that empty lot downtown since 2008,” Caggiano said. Bristol is one of the largest municipalities in Connecticut, “but we have no true downtown.”
Now, he said, the city is on the cusp of a major building boom, with new development projects and a master plan in place for downtown revitalization.
“Downtown has been Bristol’s Achilles heel since urban renewal swept through in the 1960s, razing an entire side of Main Street, building the mall, widening roads and leveling the beloved Post Office,” said Ellen Zoppo-Sassu, Bristol’s former mayor who is now Enfield’s town manager.
When she took office in 2017, previous development plans for the entire 17-acre former mall site evaporated due to financial issues, Zoppo-Sassu said.
When the city got a commitment from Bristol Hospital to occupy a parcel on the corner of Main and Riverside streets, the downtown development strategy shifted.
Instead of finding a developer for the entire former mall site, now known as Bristol Centre Square, the city decided to sell off individual parcels as the “more logical approach,” she said.
Downtown projects started slowly, with Bristol Hospital opening its new three-story, 60,000-square-foot medical center in 2019.
“That was the only thing that happened for five or six years, but we’re starting to get that re-energized again,” with new projects on the horizon, Caggiano said.
In 2022, Wheeler Health broke ground on a new 46,000-square-foot community health center and administrative headquarters in the Bristol Centre Square area.
When it’s completed roughly a year from now, it should create more than 200 full- and part-time jobs downtown, city officials said.
The city is also building two parking garages for those who live, work and play in the new downtown Bristol.
An evolving vision
Like many cities, Bristol’s master plan has changed dramatically from roughly a decade ago.
“Our early master plan was lots of retail. How realistic that is post-COVID with the Amazon era, I’m not so sure,” the mayor said.
A recent study by East Hartford consulting firm Goman+York advised towns on navigating a changing economic development landscape, with a focus on growth areas like e-commerce, multifamily development, experiential retail, medical centers, and quick and casual restaurants.
The firm said Bristol needs to get 3,000 people to live in the downtown area to help fulfill the new “live, work, play” master plan, with the health clinics providing jobs, and the Carrier project and other developments creating the residential units.
“The philosophy was that if we were able to fill downtown during the day with office workers, and at night with people returning home to their apartments, there would be an economic spillover effect on the existing small business community as well as attract new commerce,” Zoppo-Sassu said.
She credits the Bristol Hospital development with “shoring up the confidence of many others who were contemplating investment.”
The vision came into focus when Carrier proposed the new mixed-use apartment development.
Economic development tools
The effort to build places for people to live and work is underway, “but we want them to stay around in the evening. So, the ‘play’ is the hardest challenge for us,” Caggiano said.
That’s why adding restaurants will be key to the Carrier project.
And to spur activity, the city is launching a new $750,000 low-interest, partially forgivable loan program for new downtown businesses, including restaurants.
Caggiano believes the new projects, infrastructure investment and business incentives will catalyze a revamped downtown.
“As people come downtown, maybe if they haven’t been down here in a year or two, they’re going to be shocked by what’s happening,” he said.
