Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com July 13, 2015 • Hartford Business Journal 3 Segarra wants to see progress reach full blossom By Brad Kane bkane@HartfordBusiness.com I ncumbent Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra, 56, is seeking his second full term in office and third term overall. Unlike his first two runs for office, however, this election is going to be much more contentious. When Segarra was serving as Hartford City Council president in 2010, he took over as mayor after Eddie Perez resigned following a corrup- tion conviction. Less than 17 months later, Segarra won re-election, facing no major com- petition and winning 82 percent of the votes. This year, Segarra faces no less than six challengers, four of which will compete in the Democratic primary Sept. 15. A native of Puerto Rico who grew up in the Bronx, Segarra moved to Hartford at age 15. A lawyer who was heavily involved in the community, Segarra was first appointed to serve on the Hartford City Council in 2006 and then won his first election as a city councilman in 2008. He was serving that first full elected term when he took over as mayor from Perez. His main motivation in seeking re-election this year is continuing the programs he started to improve Hartford's vibrancy but aren't quite complete, Segarra said. These include better graduation rates, lower crime, increased eco- nomic development and an overall change of the internal and external perception of Hartford. Segarra lives with his husband, Charlie Ortiz, in the West End neighborhood. How would you assess Hartford's cur- rent economy? It needs improvement, but it is stronger than it has been in a long, long time. What are your top two economic devel- opment initiatives to improve the city? We are going to continue improving edu- cation and decreasing crime. We need to accelerate the pace of development in all areas of our city because it is a great job cre- ator and it is what is needed. We need to continue what we are doing in Downtown North in all areas of the city. We need to take advantage of our new Promise Zone in the north end to use that as a catalyst for change. We need to use Westport Village and Bose Park and the close to $200 million in schools and infrastructure improvements in the north end to facilitate job creation and also improve that community. Streetscapes are vitally important as corri- dors to our businesses, so we need to continue to work on streetscapes. We are going to con- tinue to implement the TIGER [Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery] grants we secured from the federal govern- ment [for road improvements around Bushnell Park]. We are going to ask for another TIGER grant to do Main Street to connect the south end to the north end. We just got the national park designation for Coltsville, and we are redeveloping Dillon Stadium in the hopes of recruiting a national soccer team. The question is how can we make all the improvements we need to make in our city and not increase taxes. For five years, I've been able to keep the mill rate stable, which has not hap- pened in a long time. However, it comes at a cost because you have to cut expenditures. What can be done to reduce the 74.29 mill commercial property tax rate? We have to continue to advocate for more PILOT [Payment in Lieu of Taxes] funding. We also need to continue to grow the grand list, and the projects we have been doing have done that. We also need to work on the government side to make things more efficient. It is a combination of increased growth and more state assistance. Because we are the Capital City, 52 percent of our property is tax- exempt, which is something created by state and federal law. The state needs to take more responsibility for its tax-exempt properties. With multiple transportation projects in various stages of completion, what is your long-term plan for how people will move to, from, and around Hartford? Obviously, that is limited by our financial resources. If resources weren't a problem, we would like to have electric light-rail trol- leys that can move people efficiently. In the meantime, because we are a very walkable city and a very small city, we are trying to have multiple transportation options. That is a combination of cycling, walking, cars and buses but in a more coherent way. At the same time, we have connections to the outside world. Our interstates need to be totally redone. I-84 and I-91 have really broken up our city and created a bad situation for us. One of the things I have done as mayor is part- ner with the U.S. Conference of Mayors and lobby Congress for a long-term transportation bill that invests in our cities. These transporta- tion systems are vital to our economy. How would you continue to work with the Capital Region Development Author- ity (CRDA) to improve the city? We have been working with the CRDA. I sit on that board; our economic development direc- tor sits on that board, and we have another city appointee on that board. We have been a strong partner in facilitating the permitting of projects and coming up with tax-fixing agreements and other incentives to make those projects work. Continued H A R T F O R D MAYORAL RACE 2015 Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra is running for his second full term in office. H B J P H O T O | B R A D K A N E From Central Connecticut's trusted business news source. G r e at e r H a r t f o r d ' s B u s i n e s s n e w s w w w. H a r t f o rd B u s i n e s s . c o m for more B2B news visit March 24, 2014 Volume 22, number 18 $3.00 subscribe online June 5, 2014 Only 11 weeks until C T B E x p o . c o m Index ■ Reporter's Notebook: PG. 5 ■ Week in Review: PG. 6 ■ The List: PG. 9 ■ Deal Watch: PG. 10 ■ Nonprofit Notebook: PG. 19 ■ Opinion & Commentary: PG. 20 Focus: BankinG & Finance Fueling Growth State's insurance reinvestment tax credit spurs venture deals. PG: 8 Blight Fight Connecticut's first-ever brownfields director to lead redevelopment efforts. PG: 3 Best Places to Work in CT Check out the state's top employers in the "Best Places to Work in CT" supplement. Marijuana growers seek profits in turbulent industry By Brad Kane bkane@HartfordBusiness.com F or the past 80 years, if a business wanted to profit from growing marijuana in Connecticut, it had to do so illicitly, on the fringes of society. Not anymore. By mid-summer, four growers will have cornered the state's nascent multi-million dollar medical marijuana industry, having navigated Connecticut's rigorous regulatory waters and the federal government's insistence that what they're doing still is illegal. Continued on page 12 By Gregory Seay gseay@HartfordBusiness.com D ecades ago, brothers Joseph Jr. and Jacob Cullman harvested enough leaf tobacco from hundreds of acres of their rich soil in Bloomfield and Windsor to become one of the nation's largest growers. The Cullman family's deep Connecticut roots were even reflected, until recently, in the wholesale landscape-nursery operations that evolved from their tobacco farm into Culbro Land Resources, what today is Grif- fin Land & Nurseries Inc. Three generations later, the Cullman broth- ers' heirs and their Griffin corporate aides are cultivating and managing crops of a wholly different kind: Mature brick-and-mortar plant- ings of office and industrial parks in central Connecticut and several fledgling sprouts in Pennsylvania's Amish countryside. Through a combination of shrewd fore- sight, patience and some fortuitous turns, Griffin Land has amassed more than 2.1 mil- lion square feet in 28 office and industrial buildings in the Hartford region alone, rank- ing it among Connecticut's top landlords. It also owns 2,000 undeveloped acres in Continued on page 12 From tobacco seeds, Griffin Land's brick, mortar garden blooms Office buildings like this Bloomfield one, along with industrial structures, are staples in Griffin Land & Nurseries Inc.'s realty portfolio. P h o t o | C o n t r i b u t e d Ethan Ruby's Theraplant is spending up to $4 million to renovate its Watertown facility to comply with Connecticut's strict regulations for growing medical marijuana. P h o t o | P a b l o r o b l e s Connecticut Medical Marijuana Growers Company Facility Location Principal Advanced Grow Labs West Haven David Lipton Connecticut Pharmaceutical Solutions Portland Thomas Schultz CuraLeaf Simsbury Eileen Konieczny Theraplant Watertown Ethan Ruby s o u r C e : C o n n e C t i C u t d e P a r t m e n t o f C o n s u m e r P r o t e C t i o n GrowinG LeGaLLy G r e at e r H a r t f o r d ' s B u s i n e s s n e w s w w w. H a r t f o rd B u s i n e s s . c o m for more B2B news visit March 31, 2014 Volume 22, number 19 $3.00 subscribe online June 5, 2014 Only 10 weeks until C T B E x p o . c o m Index ■ Reporter's Notebook: PG. 5 ■ Week in Review: PG. 6 ■ The List: PG. 10 ■ Deal Watch: PG. 11 ■ Nonprofit Notebook: PG. 19 ■ Opinion & Commentary: PG. 20 Faces oF Business Main Street Mainstay Manchester's Bray Jewelers has survived for almost 100 years. Read about the family business' secrets to success and what makes customers keep coming back. PG. 3 Focus: economic DeveloPment Social Entrepreneurship Hartford business accelerator aims to nurture socially conscious businesses. PG. 8 Music copyright lawsuits cost restaurants unexpected thousands By Matt Pilon mpilon@HartfordBusiness.com A few years ago, nine songs were played inside Shelton's Vazzy's Cucina restaurant that ended up costing owners John Vazzano and Vincent L. Noce $18,000. That's because an agent of licensing giant Broadcast Music Inc., which represents the artists who owned the tracks, attested to being present when the tunes were played and sued Vazzano and Noce for copyright infringement, claiming the restaurant's music qualified as a public per- formance. Under federal copyright law, that meant the restaurant had to pay for the rights to play the songs, BMI said. Vazzano said he thinks a private party actually played the tunes. Broadcast Music Inc. • Founded in 1939 • Represents more than 600,000 songwriters and publishers with more than 8.5 million songs. • Distributed 85 cents of every dollar in licensing revenue in royalties — that amounted to $814 million in fiscal 2013. By Gregory Seay gseay@HartfordBusiness.com B y late May, the Corporation For Independent Living (CIL) expects to have in its hands title to the derelict Capewell Horse- nails factory in Hartford's South End in a bid to convert the idle eyesore into 72 apartments and an adjacent parcel into 24 affordable townhomes. If it does, it will open another fruit- ful chapter for a South End nonprofit that has leveraged — and exported — its talent as a group-home developer to shelter a diverse swath of central Connecticut's population. It, too, will be one of the final swan songs before the yearend retirement of its first and only chief executive. Since its launch in 1979 to finance, build, lease out — then ultimately give away — supportive shelter for thou- sands of the state's physically and mentally disabled, CIL has invested $458 million to construct or convert 2,205 dwelling units into shelter for 7,200 residents in Connecticut and Massachusetts. For at least a dozen years, CIL has applied that same skill set to its expand- ing for-profit realty development opera- tions that include Capewell, and a neigh- boring nonprofit-office-space cluster. In February, CIL announced it bought and will resume work on the $3.34 mil- lion Depot Crossing mixed-use project John Vazzano, owner of Vazzy's Cucina in Shelton, was upset when his restaurant had to pay $18,000 to settle a music copyright lawsuit. P h O t O | P a b l O R O b l e s Continued on page 16 Continued on page 15 Martin "Marty'' Legault, president and CEO, Corporation For Independent Living (CIL) With Legault, developer CIL soars as landlord Sued for a ong It's the up-to-date information you need to do better business! Get local breaking business news daily! Sign up today at HartfordBusiness.com: Click on the 'SUBSCRIBE' button HBJToday and

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