Hartford Business Journal

12 Hartford Business Journal • February 27, 2017 www.HartfordBusiness.com Build integrity through compliance www.business.uconn.edu/compliance GRADUATE CERTIFICATE IN CORPORATE & REGULATORY COMPLIANCE UConn's School of Business and School of Law are jointly offering a new graduate certificate in corporate & regulatory compliance. Whether you are a business compliance professional or an attorney, this certificate can help you: - Manage compliance at a new level. - Get perspective from lawyers and businesspeople. - Develop value-added compliance programs. - Stay ahead of crisis. We will teach you not only how to conform to the rules, but how to build a values-driven culture. that would eventually transform acres of adjacent state-owned parking lots into high- rise apartments/condos, office and retail space. A development partnership between The Bushnell and the state, via the Capital Region Development Authority, would shep- herd the project, officials say. Bushnell CEO David Fay says the sprouting of some 1,000 new living units downtown, plus prospects for more with UConn's impending fall opening of its new downtown campus just blocks away, makes this the right time to pur- sue such an ambitious development — likely the biggest since city's 1960s urban-renewal project, Constitution Plaza. Less than a mile away, Hartford Hospital's new, $150 million Bone & Joint Institute opened in November. "The Bushnell wants to be a constructive partner that wants to see our neighborhood developed more aggressively with residential and commercial development,'' said Avon entrepreneur/philanthropist Robert E. (Bob) Patricelli, who chairs The Bushnell's commit- tee promoting development of its surround- ing neighborhood. The project is moving along with earnest, recently securing a $20,000 marketing study and hiring a consultant to identify/create public-private partners, and line up tax cred- its and other funding from investors and/or lenders. In addition, The Bushnell's design team is firming the look and specifications of the development's brick-and-mortar and open-space components, Fay said. The Bushnell sees opportunity not only to create a permanent revenue stream as a land- lord, but also to cultivate new generations of theater-goers and arts patrons from down- town and surrounding neighborhoods. One of the revenue ideas is adding and operating a sidewalk cafe with indoor-outdoor seating, on the Capitol Avenue side of The Bushnell, as a gathering place for theatergoers and the public. "We want this to be an entertainment/resi- dential district that would directly support our activities in the theater,'' said Patricelli, founder and CEO of Women's Health USA and immediate past chairman of The Bushnell's board of directors. "No theater can live on box-office receipts … alone. We have an opportunity to create a new kind of neighbor- hood … for people living and working in and around downtown.'' The city, which desperately needs addi- tional sources of property-tax revenue to sustain itself, too, Patricelli said, would ben- efit by having all the surface parking and the land beneath the state's adjacent outdated laboratory building on Clinton Street, slated for demolition, back on the tax rolls. "When you look at where The Bushnell is, imagine how much nicer it would be with housing and retail stores around, rather than a parking lot,'' said Travelers Chief Financial Officer Jay S. Benet, who chairs Bushnell's trustees board. Arts an economic developer In its earliest days, ironically, The Bush- nell was smack in the middle of a residential neighborhood, bristling with two- and three- family homes and apartments, Fay said. But over the years, as residents moved out of the neighborhood, leaving houses in disrepair, state government slowly moved into the area. Houses were knocked down to erect a state office building and to provide surface park- ing for state workers. Now, The Bushnell is embracing its charter as a cultural/education beacon, but also as a "kickstarter" for improving the lots of the city and its residents, Fay and others said. Exam- ples of other U.S. cities where the arts/culture community has led a resurgence of neighbor- hood development include New York City; Pitts- burgh, Pa.; Newark, N.J.; and Cleveland, Ohio. "This project is kind of a return to first principles,'' said Doug Suisman, an award- winning urban planner who advised the city and its corporate and civic partners on their iQuilt initiative. "The Bushnell can't move, but the rest of the city around it can change.'' Proponents say Bushnell Square ultimately will make neighboring Bushnell Park less a divider and more a transition point between two distinct neighborhoods — the central business from page 1 The Bushnell seeks role as developer Digital rendering of a proposed sidewalk cafe, fronting Capitol Avenue, for The Bushnell. R E N D E R I N G | C O N T R I B U T E D

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