The towns of Rocky Hill and Wethersfield have offered up reduced-price storefront facelifts in an early step to make over a sun-drenched, traffic-heavy part of Silas Deane Highway.
Most of the revamped building designs still only exist as architect’s renderings, but that’s progress to Rocky Hill’s economic development director.
“We have a rendering for that package store, thank God,” says Ray Carpentino while driving past a store with weathered gray shingles and a distinct run-down vibe.
Carpentino counts 16 local businesses along his stretch of the Silas Deane that have applied for the façade program. The businesses include a pet shop, a car repair center, a Subway restaurant, a chiropractor’s office — all sharing the same stripped-down look, which can be politely described as “functional.”
If approved for the program, an architect and the store owner hash out a design plan, get a series of cost estimates, get approval from the city and do the project with the store owner’s money. If the owner follows through with the pre-approved plans, Carpentino said, the city would refund 75 percent of costs — but only up to $50,000.
For both towns, it represents the first step in creating the kind of walkable shopping district that invites socializing and spending. That’s going to require slowing traffic, arranging for new landscaping and “street furniture” such as bus stops and benches, and encouraging development of underused land.
Physical Makeover
“You’re literally talking 20 years to see the overall changes, and maybe even longer,” said Peter Gillespie, economic development manager for Wethersfield. The façade program there has been gaining momentum, he said, with seven applications in and five approved. Wethersfield, unlike Rocky Hill’s 75 percent rebate, will cover 50 percent of costs.
“One of the big complaints has been that the highway is tired and run-down, and it’s in need of a physical makeover,” he said.
Najib Habesch, vice president of New England operations for Urban Engineers Inc., attended an East Hartford meeting in April to help the town toss around ideas for its own downtown revitalization work, which is — for now — focused on slowing traffic and beautifying the streets.
He and other planners stress that beatification isn’t enough — efforts to slow traffic and bring in economic development are necessary components, too.
Still, you’re accustomed to whizzing by unattractive shops on the Silas Deane, a store’s facelift might actually make you pull over and go in, he said. It’s not an economic windfall, but it’s something.
“It’s the first spoke in the wheel,” he said.
