New $39M Aetna garage approved

[The Voice of Reason]

I think the title pretty much says it all.

But I will add that it represents 1605 parking spaces, and the exterior of the garage will be designed to kind of mimic the main Aetna building.

It will replace an existing parking structure on Sigourney Street. I do not know enough about the area, but I am very happy that Aetna is leading the charge in building garages rather than flattening neighborhoods and paving flat parking.

it may be a little late, but it is definately a great example to lead with. Now if we could only get the same from The Hartford.

[HartfordTycoon]

I think the title pretty much says it all.

But I will add that it represents 1605 parking spaces, and the exterior of the garage will be designed to kind of mimic the main Aetna building.

It will replace an existing parking structure on Sigourney Street. I do not know enough about the area, but I am very happy that Aetna is leading the charge in building garages rather than flattening neighborhoods and paving flat parking.

it may be a little late, but it is definately a great example to lead with. Now if we could only get the same from The Hartford.

[Theophrastus Bombastus]

I think the title pretty much says it all.

But I will add that it represents 1605 parking spaces, and the exterior of the garage will be designed to kind of mimic the main Aetna building.

It will replace an existing parking structure on Sigourney Street. I do not know enough about the area, but I am very happy that Aetna is leading the charge in building garages rather than flattening neighborhoods and paving flat parking.

it may be a little late, but it is definately a great example to lead with. Now if we could only get the same from The Hartford.

[The Voice of Reason]

Perez quote from the article:

"The pieces are beginning to come together for the relocation of 3,400 employees to the Asylum Hill campus of the Aetna," said Hartford Mayor Eddie A. Perez."

What is he talking about? 3,400 NEW people working in Hartford??? Relocation from where?

[HartfordTycoon]

Perez quote from the article:

"The pieces are beginning to come together for the relocation of 3,400 employees to the Asylum Hill campus of the Aetna," said Hartford Mayor Eddie A. Perez."

What is he talking about? 3,400 NEW people working in Hartford??? Relocation from where?

[blackstone]

Thanks for posting this, I meant to do it yesterday. This is indeed a great sign of the real committment that Aetna has to the area and making it work for them and the neighborhood. I echo your sentiment that The Hartford needs to act more like Aetna when it comes to turning Asylum Hill around.

[The Voice of Reason]

http://www.aetna.com/news/2006/pr_20060728.htm

this is what Aetna is doing.

Market street garage? do you mean Morgan St?

If you do mean morgan street it is fairly well used, just not 100% The roof almost never has any cars on it.

if you do mean market...I do not know this garage

[Luca Brasi]

The Market St. garage is directly across Market St. from the Morgan St. garage and is connected by a skybridge to 960 Main St.

Over the years, Aetna has surrounded itself with a sea of parking lots. This is a step in the right direction. It would be nice to see Aetna take Phoenix-type initiative and come up with a development plan for their surface parking the way Bob Fiondella did.

[blackstone]

http://www.aetna.com/news/2006/pr_20060728.htm

this is what Aetna is doing.

Market street garage? do you mean Morgan St?

If you do mean morgan street it is fairly well used, just not 100% The roof almost never has any cars on it.

if you do mean market...I do not know this garage

[HartfordTycoon]

my brain. sorry about that. i would like to watch a discusison here about what the impact would be on the surface lot properties if 2 or 3 (or more) morgan street size garages went up, dispersed evenly throughout the cbd. for instance, would this encourage development of some of these lots, by lessening the value of the lots. or would it increase the value. what would the affect be on mass transit. what would the affect be on property vaue. and so on.

[The Voice of Reason]

I honestly never see the demand for surface parking being eliminated because so many people, especially here, seem to have this aversion to using garages. I think we need to nudge the market on this by implementing a split tax that would tax vacant land at a higher rate than properties with structures on them. I think that forcing the surface lots to be less profitable is what will ultimately encourage the owners to either develop or sell to someone who will and eliminating the surface lots will force more people to use garages. Once people start using the garages they will see that they are cheaper, more convenient, and better than leaving your car exposed in a surface lot all day.

[blackstone]

As it stands right now I am not sure there is a need for 2-3 Morgan street garages. The thing is that if all of the flat parking South of I-84 were developed into buildings the city would be seriously hurting for parking. At this moment the buildings most in need of dedicated parking are 280 Trumbull, 777 Main (BOA) City place I. City place II and Goodwin are helped by the H-21 garage, 280 Trumbull is helped by all those lots North of 84 and the church street lot.

If the Society for savings location were ever developed it would need to incorporate more parking than the building itself required as well as more spaces then there now to support the surrounding buildings. That flat lot provides parking to many of the small businesses, small offices as well as the State House Square building. The single best way to make parking less of an issue in Hartford would be to make sure that this location has excessive underground parking. I suppose a variation is turning the space along asylum behind 777Main into as much parking as possible.

Would building garages in places like 180 Allyn street make demand for street level parking low enough to make it unprofitable? I doubt it. Part of the problem with these lots is ownership has changed little in the last 20 years. and by that nature these lots were bought for peanuts. the owners only pay city taxes, and they contract out to parking companies for guarenteed return. They have no motivation to develop anything. if parking rates were halved the lots would still make money just less.

The huge open area on Allyn street for example was last sold in 1986 for a total of 8.3 million. and had been assesed at 1,643,000 since 1998. If the city is looking to get these guys to do anything with this land they would need to make sure their expenses are as high as their cut from the parking company. and just guessing but between insurance and taxes I bet they dont pay much more than 100k a year. that land contains something like 400+ parking spots and 120 a month(low for the CBD) brings in 600,000 a year. So all of that being said the city would definately need to put the split tax in place. This land is getting a free ride.

I think for the sake of the CBD, developments that do get done need to maximize parking. If we use prime locations solely for parking we loose out on the street fabric. all you have to do is walk by any of the garages we currently have.

If the 180 allyn site is developed along with a new arena and the Metrocenter II lot is developed as well, this would make flar parking much less the norm than it is now. my only hope is that the city/state get involved to provide the parking the city needs.

As far as hurting mass transit? We may never know. The important thing is that extra parking will not hurt anything. if effective mass transit is ever built and people do not drive to work in the numbers we see today, then the parking would be used by residents. so its never a bad thing to have parking.

[The Voice of Reason]

some points.

you have not mentioned that there is a great deal of parking on surface lots just north of 84. maybe the single largest sea of cars on a surface lot downtown. that might be a good place for one large garage, somewhere abutting main and 84, with a deck over to cross.

i don't think that more than one garage should be in the middle of the cbd and i think that place should be in the open lot(s) across from black eyed sally's, which is currently used for parking. people will use the garage, if the garage is convenient. so, if they park now on surface lots, they would park in a garage built on those lots. i suspect that these lots operate as a cartel, controlling price and presumably would not be easily convinced to allow a developer to build. i parked last night in city place, went to max's, got validated and rode out for free. i like garages. i don't want to have to investigate for hours to figure out when my car will be ticketed or towed off the street. and while a lot may be safer, what about ice and snow days or sun baking days. my car does not need that. nor i. parking on the street and in lots, exposed, as HT said all day, is not desireable. but who wants to hoof it from market/morgan to coaches bar? so one would have to be somewhat central to the cbd. maybe eddie can strong arm one or two of these surface vampires.

your comment about "even if the surface lot owners cut their rates in half"....that would be the day.

sour the stew with taxes and/or sweeten the pot somehow to make it happen. either way is fine with me. just get it done.

[beerbeer]

This is my old standby. The red area west of Union Station is the perfect place for a multi-story parking garage. It keeps the CBD open for development, it's only four blocks from City Place, three from the XL Center and close to the Allyn/Union Street entertainment district.

[T52]

This is my old standby. The red area west of Union Station is the perfect place for a multi-story parking garage. It keeps the CBD open for development, it's only four blocks from City Place, three from the XL Center and close to the Allyn/Union Street entertainment district.

[blackstone]

Blackstone,

The panacea from my view is the 180 Allyn street location. If you look into a thread called missed opportunities for Hartford CBD I have written up my ideas for what would work best for certain properties in Hartford. In brief, I think that the corner of Allyn and High street should not be a gorgeous old building on one corner and 3 huge parking lots. I suggest turning those 3 huge parking lots into a massive underground parking lot. These 3.315 acres would at the minimum contain 800 condos built in ~8 story buildings with ground level retail. The underground parking garage would have about the same footprint as the 3 areas currently do. It would just be 4 stories under ground and hold 4 times as many cars. 3200 parking spaces in this location would go a very long way towards fixing the downtown parking problems.

Also, I think part of the reason people are uncomfortable walking in the city now is because of the flat garages and how they make the streets dark and foreboding. If that whole area mentioned above was built, no one would feel unsafe walking down Allyn Street. There would be life and activity the entire length of it. If the arena was re built as planned it would make the perceived safe area extend all the way to City Steam and Dish up on Main Street. The city needs to develop "safe corridors"

OHH what I could do to this city with a few hundred million

[dapapabear2]

"The red area west of Union Station is the perfect place for a multi-story parking garage"

Didn't the article about the planned changes at Union Station mention putting a garage there?

[MadVlad]

Putting a garage adjacent to Bushnell Park is a bad idea. Let a building go there, that's too important a spot for a garage.

[beerbeer]

It isn't adjacent to Bushnell Park. It is on the other side of the railroad bridge.

But it is close enough to hold cars for people attending events in the park.

It is a terrible place for a building. It backs up to i-84 making it a horrible place for residential. It is also on a small side street meaning any large office building would have huge traffic flow problems.

It's the perfect spot for a parking garage and little else.

[The Voice of Reason]

I think this is what the city/union station people want to do. at least thats what this report says from 2004

all as part of the bus way.

http://www.hartfordinfo.org/issues/wsd/tra...rdTODBoards.pdf

the only rediculous thing is the plan for the parking is ground floor transit stuff, 4 floors of parking and 4 floors office or whatever. But those 4 floors of parking only yield 325 spaces?!?!??!???!?

By my count the current flat parking gives 211 spaces. They should be able to create 800 spaces easily.

I would think this site could provide over 1000 spaces as well as additional uses on the Asylum frontage. obviously their design is really just a concept and a simplistic one at that. I dont mind parking here as lond as the Asylum street side and park view areas are housing.

[MadVlad]

It isn't adjacent to Bushnell Park. It is on the other side of the railroad bridge.

But it is close enough to hold cars for people attending events in the park.

It is a terrible place for a building. It backs up to i-84 making it a horrible place for residential. It is also on a small side street meaning any large office building would have huge traffic flow problems.

It's the perfect spot for a parking garage and little else.

[mikel]

I'm against a parking lot blocking views of Asylum Hill. I think we have to discourage people from taking their car to the CBD. Since we have an abundance of parking now, I think we should plan for a car-free or at least a minimal-car CBD. Once the public transportation is in place (commuter rail, busway), we will see a drop in the amount of cars in the CBD. Putting up more garages at this point shows a lack of vision. Union Station can be accessed by bus, shuttle, or if people want to take a train from Hartford and drive to the station, they should be encouraged to use a suburban station. I-84 will someday (the sooner the better) be gone, and more efficient public transportation should take its place.