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1 2 C T I N N O V A T O R S , 2 0 2 2 Skin In e Game Carlos Mouta's expanding vision for Parkville creates regional draw for Hartford >> BY HARRIET JONES When Carlos Mouta first arrived in Hartford at the age of 14, he wasn't impressed. "It was sad because I lived in a city that was probably bigger than Hartford," he says. "We had a movie theater with a restaurant. When I came to the movie theater here, they had popcorn." e immigrant boy who made the city's Parkville neighborhood his home has now spent decades creating the Hartford he might have wanted to see, investing in real estate and dreaming big on signature mixed-use developments, in the process becoming one of the city's most colorful figures. Parkville Market, the state's first food hall, was his brainchild — a project that in its planning stages made many scratch their heads, but which, aer opening in the midst of the pandemic, has become a trendy regional destination. "I've been underestimated all my life — I've been proving people wrong all my life," he smiles. "Not on purpose, but it kind of becomes fun aer a while." Early start Mouta spent most of his childhood in the city of Beira in Mozambique, then a Portuguese colony. When the country declared independence in 1975, his Portuguese parents emigrated to the U.S., ending up in Hartford. For the teenage Carlos, it wasn't a great trade. "I was a soccer player, and soccer was not big," he remembers. Nevertheless, he played for his new school, Hartford High, as they became state champions for the first time in 1977. Mouta went on to Central Connecticut State University to study business and marketing. But it was the part-time job he'd been working since his teenage years that provided him with his start in the professional world. "I'd been a paperboy through high school, then through college," he recalls. "It was a great experience. You had to provide good service, deliver the paper on time, so it was a real business." When he le college, the Hartford Courant took him on full time in their circulation department, and there he recruited others to deliver the paper. "Me with my accent and everything else," he laughs, "but I had a three-piece suit with a briefcase and I would tell the wealthy parents, this is going to be your son's business." Meanwhile he was also getting a reputation as someone who could fix things, and a friend began badgering him to seek a job with his brother's real estate firm. He was intrigued enough to give it a try. "I knew nothing about real estate," says Mouta now. But he learned on the job as a general manager, overseeing leasing, payables and maintenance, getting an overview of all aspects of the business. en came the economic collapse of the late 1980s and early 90s, as real estate values in Hartford plummeted and several CAR LOS Carlos Mouta sits in an apartment he created as part of the renovation of 1477 Park St. PHOTOS | STEVE LASCHEVER