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www.HartfordBusiness.com November 26, 2012 • Hartford Business Journal 87 Celebrating 20 Years of Business News FUTURE The "It's going to feel very different downtown when all those people are here. Yes, the grocery store will have to come, right? Because the demand will mean a supply comes in behind it." -- Catherine Smith DECD Commissioner Catherine Smith suggesting, it might be to make those other places desirous and you build a corridor like, obviously on a smaller version, but like a Dulles with the trans- portation system there and all, then there'll be more transportation systems. Because people say, 'see what that did for them. Look at this. Look at the eco- nomic development that we need.' BELL: Which I guess brings us to the question of timeline. We started talking about if we sit here 10 years from now, will there be a high-speed rail? One busway? FastTrack? SMITH: One will be built and the connection to the airport will be completed, with the rail system. Manchester is a question. But there will be a lot accomplished in the next 10 years. I do think, as we make those investments, as I said before, that will spur more activity in and around the region, which will be great. BELL: We talked about people moving downtown. How many 10 years from now? SMITH: Right now, our rental housing is 98 percent filled downtown. The governor's vision of building 2-3,000 units over the next few years is very important. Can we fill those? I think the demand will be there to fill it, particularly if the various conversations that are now underway with the university systems are completed. You're going to see our downtown hous- ing be much more, much greater, which I think will help. It's going to be geared largely at young peo- ple. We're talking about studios and one-bedroom apartments are likely to be the ones that get built in the next few years. It's going to feel very different down- town when all those people are here. Yes, the grocery store will have to come, right? Because the demand will mean a supply comes in behind it. So, it's going to be a really fun and interesting place to live in a few years with a very different shap- ing of generations, as you describe. So, the pieces are here, but they need to grow. They need to be exposed to younger people in a much better way. BELL: When we talk housing, I look at the Clarion Hotel, I look at the Bank of America building, I look at these interesting conversion proj- ects. Is that what we're doing or are we going to build from scratch? SMITH: My guess is there'll end up being at least two propos- als to build from scratch, but we do have a building stock, and it makes a lot of sense to reuse. I mean, Clarion, the old Clarion Hotel is very easily convert- ed into apartments. That's the beautiful thing about private sector. They'll come in and make the best economic deals that they can. You're going to see a little bit of everything as we move forward. Congratulations to the Hartford Business Journal on twenty years of excellence in business news coverage! Celebrating Ten Years of Innovation! 2002—2012 ovationbenefits.com 800.364.7575