Why is the Goodwin Hotel still empty you ask...?

[Luca Brasi]

Because the city mandates any hotel that opens there, open as a union shop. I was in a meeting this morning with someone in the hotel business and I asked why the Goodwin is still empty after all these years. I was told the hotel sits on city owned land, and the city has stipulated that any hotel that opens there be unionized. This is exactly what drove the Goodwin out of business to begin with.

So here we are four years after the Goodwin hotel closed with the most beautiful building downtown sitting empty because of politicians trying to push an agenda. I thought this nonsense ended when we got rid of Eddie Perez? I'm told there is plenty of interest in this hotel, but not under the conditions the city is forcing upon prospective operators. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. This city still doesn't get it...

If this is indeed true, it deserves a write up in the Courant by one of its columnists.

[beerbeer]

That wouldn't happen in Wisconsin : )

[drc72]

The current mayor is just as bad as perez.

[The Voice of Reason]

thats not fair at all.

That city mandate may well be from Perez or city council from past or present. There would have to have been a proclaimation or some other such political tool used to create this stipulation.

remember there are still rules on the books in Hartford forbidding the kissing of your wife in public on a Sunday.

I think this rule if true is absolutely moronic though.

Perez meddled with the hotel industry in Hartford WAY TOO MUCH!

the crap he did with the convention center, the Mariott Downtown, the Hilton, and apparently the Goodwin is crazyness.

Segara does not seem to be like that at all.

This building incidentally is not city owned, it is Northland owned. the land could be city owned possibly much like city place was until recently, but I am not sure how they could enforce a rule like that with the building owner.

before Northland owned it, the state did, and its possible that terms of that sale included the union kicker?

who knows, either way, its total BS