🔒Market Intelligence Report: Business Resources

Greater New Haven boasts an abundance of resources for businesses of all sizes, life-cycles and industries.

Connecticut has a long history of active and engaged business groups at the state, regional and local levels. The state’s largest business group, the Connecticut Business & Industry Association (CBIA), has nearly 2,000 members. Major regional business groups such as the Bridgeport Regional Business Council, Metro Hartford Alliance and the 225-year-old Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce represent hundreds of companies and wield substantial influence.

As with most business groups, they must reconcile the needs and agendas of the few large companies that typically dominate their boards of directors and most powerful committees with the interests of their far more numerous small-business members. Truly, the myth of a monolithic business community is just that — a myth.

Along those lines, businesses groups organized by industry and/or affinity (e.g., New Haven Manufacturers Association, New Haven Middlesex Realtors) encourage communication and collaboration between and among erstwhile competitors.

Not long ago, would-be entrepreneurs seeking to grow an enterprise from the ground up were restricted to their living rooms or the local public library for space to work in.

That has changed dramatically over the last decade with the rise of incubator and coworking spaces. New Haven has been a pioneering community in the coworking movement.

Coworking spaces offer more than just a room with a desk (and limitless jolts of joe). Their most attractive feature may be proximity to other visionaries working to make something from very little. The energy and comingling of ideas coursing through long-dormant commercial/industrial spaces such as District New Haven or Bridgeport’s B:Hive are the lifeblood of many a fledgling commercial enterprise.

Another critical physical/infrastructure need of the region’s business community is for event space — accommodations for large meetings, conferences, expositions and trade shows. For decades New Haven has been dependent on a very small number of downtown meeting and conference spaces, in addition to event spaces on area college campuses.

That’s changing now, and for the better. In the last half year three new New Haven hotel projects have been announced or have come online, beginning in February with the Blake and soon to be followed by the new Graduate on Chapel Street (representing a radical transformation of the former Hotel Duncan).

The emergence of more, and more desirable, spaces to accommodate special events helps to expand the commercial horizons of the New Haven business community -- more tools to do more business with more customers.