Hartford Business Journal

12 Hartford Business Journal • June 24, 2019 • www.HartfordBusiness.com SPECIAL REPORT: CITIES PROJECT By Greg Bordonaro & Matt Pilon gbordonaro@hartfordbusiness.com, mpilon@hartfordbusiness.com W hen D&D Market closed its Franklin Avenue storefront in Sept. 2016, Hart- ford lost more than a landmark small business. The third-generation family grocer, caterer and purveyor of fresh foods traces its Capital City roots back to 1932, when present-day owner Dan- iel D'Aprile's grandfather opened a bustling market that became a main- stay on one of Hartford's most vibrant small-business corridors. However, things changed dramati- cally over the decades. Shifting demo- graphics, a shrinking customer base and higher rents all made doing busi- ness in Hartford more difficult, Daniel D'Aprile said in a recent interview. But the biggest pain point was prop- erty taxes. Though D'Aprile didn't own D&D's old Hartford quarters at 276 Franklin Ave. — his father actually does — he was still responsible for paying real estate and personal property taxes. At its peak, he owed $54,000 a year to the city — a sum that became too much to bear and led him to buy a smaller property less than four miles away in Wethersfield, where he'd eventually relocate his entire business and 38 employees. Since opening the Wethersfield loca- tion on Wolcott Hill Road in 2014, sales are up 35 percent, D'Aprile said. Just as important, he's paying less than a quar- ter of the property taxes — $12,000 annually — than he did in Hartford. "I never wanted to move my business out of Hartford, but the rent was sky- rocketing, the property taxes were sky- rocketing, and sales weren't going up," D'Aprile said. "We were working very hard for nothing. There was no money left over after paying property taxes." "If we stayed in Hartford we would have been out of business," he added. D&D Market's story isn't wholly unique. For years, Hartford's small and large businesses have complained they're paying an exorbitant and dis- proportionate share of property taxes, hurting their ability to prosper. At 74.29 mills, Hartford's property- tax rate is by far the state's highest and among the nation's highest. In fact, the effective property-tax rate for a com- mercial landlord in Hartford (over 5 percent) is higher than what New York City, Boston and Chicago landlords face. That's stifled economic growth in the Broken System Hartford's exorbitant commercial property tax curbs economic growth Editor's Note This story package is part of the Cities Project, a newsroom collaboration between the Hartford Business Journal, CT Mirror, Connecticut Public Radio, Hearst Connecticut Media, Hartford Courant, Republican-American of Waterbury and Purple States. The project will periodically publish collabora- tors' articles exploring challenges and solutions related to revitalizing Connecticut's cities. This week kicks off HBJ's four-part contribution to the series, which will explore Hartford's high commercial property tax rate, its impact on economic growth and ways to grow the city's grand list. In our next issue, HBJ explores potential remedies to lowering Hartford's property tax. HBJ PHOTO | GREG BORDONARO Hartford's high property-tax rate was a major reason Daniel D'Aprile said he moved his D&D Market grocery store to Wethersfield, where he is saving tens of thousands of dollars annually on property-tax costs.

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