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HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | 3 XXXXXX XXXX MARKET TIERS In addition to the overall statewide rankings, the index groups municipalities into three market tiers to provide more meaningful comparisons among communities of similar commercial scale. MAJOR MARKETS include municipalities with 15,000 or more jobs. There are 37 municipalities in this tier. MID-MARKETS include municipalities with 5,000 to 14,999 jobs. There are 42 municipalities in this tier. SMALL MARKETS include municipalities with fewer than 5,000 jobs. There are 90 municipalities in this tier. The tiers reflect the size of a municipality 's commercial market, not its population. A populous, largely residential town with relatively few jobs, for example, may appropriately fall into the small-market tier. The tiers allow comparisons among communities that operate at significantly different scales and may compete for different types of development and investment. WHAT THE INDEX DOESN'T MEASURE No index can capture every factor that influences a commercial real estate decision. Comprehensive and comparable municipal- level data on commercial vacancy rates, asking rents and absorption are not publicly available statewide, and therefore are not included. Development incentives, such as tax abatements and tax-increment financing, also are not centrally reported statewide and are not part of the index. The discussion of incentives in this publication is based on original reporting rather than index data. The Transaction Cost & Process category measures the cost and administrative accessibility of the local development process — how affordable and navigable it is to transact. It does not assess how restrictive a municipality 's zoning regulations may be, or how difficult it is to secure approval for an ambitious or high- density project. A well-run, low-tax community can still be challenging to build in. The index captures the former and is transparent about not yet measuring the latter. The index is intended to provide a broad, reproducible snapshot of how Connecticut municipalities compare based on factors that can be consistently measured statewide. Municipalities with questions about their data may contact Tim@ Yankeeinstitute.org or gbordonaro@hartfordbusiness.com. T he Connecticut Commercial Opportunity Index was designed to answer two questions: Which Connecticut municipalities have the strongest commercial real estate markets, and where are the costs and administrative burdens of transacting lowest? Developed by the Yankee Institute in partnership with the Hartford Business Journal, the index ranks all 169 Connecticut municipalities using publicly available economic, fiscal, demographic and municipal data. Rather than relying on a single statistic, it combines multiple indicators into an overall score intended to reflect both commercial market opportunity and the cost and ease of completing a deal. The overall score is divided into two categories: MARKET STRENGTH 70% of the overall score Market Strength measures the size and vitality of a municipality 's commercial real estate market. Most of the underlying data comes from AdvanceCT's 2026 Connecticut Town Profiles, which provide demographic, economic, labor force and fiscal information for all 169 municipalities. The category incorporates employment, the number of business establishments, the share of the tax base made up of commercial and industrial property, transportation access, and the population within practical commuting reach — measured as a blend of the population within a 45-minute drive and the population of the surrounding planning region. Market Strength receives the greater weight because the underlying depth and activity of a market are fundamental to determining commercial opportunity. TRANSACTION COST & PROCESS 30% of the overall score Transaction Cost & Process measures local conditions that affect the cost and administrative ease of developing and investing in commercial real estate. It considers permitting and regulatory processes, property taxes, transportation access, municipal fiscal health and government transparency, including the online availability of budgets, financial statements and zoning information. The two categories recognize that market size alone does not determine commercial opportunity. A municipality with a large employment and business base can still present obstacles through higher taxes or a more demanding development process. Smaller communities, meanwhile, can strengthen their competitiveness by maintaining sound finances, lowering transaction costs and creating a predictable development environment. To calculate the rankings, each measure is converted to a standardized percentile score across all 169 municipalities before its assigned weight is applied. Tied values receive identical scores. The individual measures are then combined according to the index's weighting system to determine each municipality's overall score and statewide rank. How the Connecticut Commercial Opportunity Index was built