Top five wishes for the 2011

[beerbeer]

VOR sort of started this with his dream scenario. But if you could make five changes to the city, what would they be? I'll start.

1) Get Bradley out of DOT hands. It is the most important economic generator in the state and it is run by road builders. Get experienced and visionary leadership.

2) Get Colt designated a national park and start working on making the Old State House a national park. These are historic treasures that deserve the very best.

3) Stop fighting and suing United Technologies. Act like you think they are important and deserve respect.

4) Make progress on funding a new arena. Think big 18-20 thousand seats.

5) Incentivise new housing backing units at Front Street and Pearl at Trumbull.

Honorable mention, I-84 tunnel and new train station or at least build parking garage on Groove; sell Constitution Plaza hotel and start construction at Broadcast House site; reclaim Park River through Bushnell Park; city council becomes more business friendly and no more community organizers as mayors.

[beash19]

VOR sort of started this with his dream scenario. But if you could make five changes to the city, what would they be? I'll start.

1) Get Bradley out of DOT hands. It is the most important economic generator in the state and it is run by road builders. Get experienced and visionary leadership.

2) Get Colt designated a national park and start working on making the Old State House a national park. These are historic treasures that deserve the very best.

3) Stop fighting and suing United Technologies. Act like you think they are important and deserve respect.

4) Make progress on funding a new arena. Think big 18-20 thousand seats.

5) Incentivise new housing backing units at Front Street and Pearl at Trumbull.

Honorable mention, I-84 tunnel and new train station or at least build parking garage on Groove; sell Constitution Plaza hotel and start construction at Broadcast House site; reclaim Park River through Bushnell Park; city council becomes more business friendly and no more community organizers as mayors.

You got me thinking about the Park River and I found multiple articles about Huck Finn Adventures who used to give canoe tours of the river through Hartford. Unfortunately it looks as if in 2005-06 (or sometime around then) that the state's lawyer stopped the tours.

Here's an interesting article about the tour from the NY Times...

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/31/nyregion/paddling-hartford-s-scenic-sewer-abused-underground-river-up-close-noxious.html

I'm continuing to look for any surveys or studies done in regards to bringing the river back into view. Does anybody know if they have been done?

[The Voice of Reason]

how could I not Play this game......

1: VOR wins mega millions..... therefore the city gains a dedicated developer who would mainly focus in Infill projects and increasing the quality of life downtown

ok, thats kind of a joke, but if it were to happen it would likely be as big of an impact as anything else i would put in here

here go's

In 2011 with a new Gov and new mayor and a recovering econemy.... these are my 5 wishes (but nothing too outlandish)

1) Transportation: Bradley should be made independent of the DOT as BeerBeer says, but more than that it needs to be OFICIALLY included in the NH H S rail plans with a spur that connects directly with the terminal(s)

-this would increase traffic and convenience incredibly along the entire CT river valley. The long term parking done at the train stations would also increase parking revenue for the rail network making the rail more viable, and most importantly it would increase traffic along the commuter rail making further expansion of the network more viable increasing the regional importance of Hartford. more Flights, and more international connections would result and the local econemy would improve with these connections. These final plans will be cemented in 2011 and work would begin.I-84 Viaduct plans begin to become a reality with plans solidified to bury part of highway in downtown core and change train alighnment in conjunction with the commuter rail, construction to bein in early 2012.... busway killed and funding transfered to a Waterbury-hartford spur on NH-H-S Commuter rail (now known as H-NH-S-W Commuter rail )

2) New Housing starts @ 101 Pearl, Front Street Phase 2, and Clarion Hotel site 400+ new units under construction downtown in 2011 with other plans laid for 2012

3) Commercial Realestate: AI signs tenants and begins construction of AI Tech Center, also, Riverfront Plaza lures a new company to the area with its massive empty and prime space.

4) Arena: The City/State/UConn/Whale and private investors make progress on a new arena for the state that is public/private funded and remains in the heart of downtown. The design includes replacing the church street garage with something more pedestrian friendly that straddled I-84 and a pedestrian connection is created between Allyn and Pratt Streets. construction to begin after 2012 or 13 big east tournament

5) Malloy/Pedro manage to help change the tax laws in the city making future development necessary by making vacant lad more expensive, to own.

ok, so if I won the mega millions, item #2 would definately happen. I think I would go after those 3 locations right away as redevelopments, and Id try and grab all that state/federal funding at Front Street. Id also probably convert one of the class B buildings down by the train station (above black bear)