Should taxpayer's foot Hartford's bill?

[Guinness07]

I realize this might not be a popular place for this, but here is an argument against taxpayer funding for Adriaen

[ctman987]

You bring up a very intersting point but there are some points that you are incorrect on. Private developers are pumping their own money into downtown. The developer of the Marriott Hotel at the Convention Center which is also the managment of the Convention Center just finished spending 34million dollars to renovate the Hilton Hotel which is attached to the Civic Center. This developer also renovated a historic buidling on Main Street that now houses a Residence Inn by Marriott. The Civic Center redevelopers in the past week spent 41million dollars to buy the Goodwin Square complex which includes a 300,000+ sq. ft office tower, parking garage and the historical Goodwin Hotel. This developer also owns numerous other buildings and over 1,300,000 sq. ft of Hartford office space. Trumball on the Park is being constructed by Bushnell Park which will have 100 apartments, the SNET building has been recently renovated, the city is accepting RFP's for buildings on Pearl Street to convert them into condos, and the American Airlines Buildings and Sage Allen Buildings are being renovated into apartments (all privately funded).

The developer who was kicked out of the Front Street project was a bad choice from the start. This developer is the developer who owns Constitution Plaza which is 8 office buildings, a news studio, hotel, and restaurant which are all linked by an upper level courtyard. This project attracted people to come and work in the city and then leave and thus this project could have been built in the suburbs and had the same effect. There is no ground floor retail or welcome centers which is extremly sad. A new developer has been chosen who has developed many CT shopping plazas in central CT and in southwestern CT.

New restaurants are also opening even as the city is still in the midst of construction. Allyn Street in downtown is home to numerous bars, and restaurants.

Also the city is working on attracting young professionals to the city. Just last week over 400 of them came to the city for an event to attract them to the city. Also just by walking and driving around the greater Hartford area you hear residents talking about what is going on Downtown and showing what before they were skepitical of now they are proud of.

Also this being said Hartford does have its probelms. One of the them though is not mentioned very often. I feel the city needs more manufactoring type jobs because the lower income families of the city are usually not educated enough to get jobs at the major Hartford corporations thus resulting in the need for them to travel to the suburbs for a job or become unemployed.

[Southron]

Guiness, I firmly believe that the public expense is justified here. Huge sums of government money were used by previous generations to create the current mess in downtown Hartford (urban renewal and interstate-related demolition), so it is appropriate that public funds help the city rebuild.

[MadVlad]

I don't mind my tax dollars going to boost the City of Hartford, though some do. This, I don't understand. Actually, it's probably the others that don't understand, the fact is that Hartford is the economic engine that runs the region, as it goes, so go the 'burbs. People in Avon or Glastonbury may not want to spend their money on Hartford, but considering they might not have that money (or a job) if it wasn't for Hartford, well, I hardly feel bad for them....