Hartford Business Journal

10 Hartford Business Journal • January 22, 2018 • www.HartfordBusiness.com FOCUS: Advertising, Media & Marketing Powell reflects on five decades of CT journalism Q&A talks with Chris Powell, man- aging editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester. Q. You recently announced your retire- ment as managing editor of the Journal Inquirer after 50 years at the newspaper. How has the industry changed since you started at the JI in 1967? A. The newspaper industry has collapsed with Connecticut's demographics and civic virtue. Newspaper circulation is half what it was 50 years ago despite an increase in the state's population, even though only newspa- pers — not television, not radio, and not the internet — provide substantial local news. Most people in Connecticut used to want local news. Newspaper circulation per capita here was the highest in the country. Today most people don't care about local news. Most are no longer much engaged with their geo- graphic communities. Voter registration and participation have fallen sharply. Knowledge of civics is way down. High school graduates and even college graduates can't identify the three branches of government. To function as a citizen you need to read a local newspaper. You don't need a local newspaper for keeping up with the Kardashians. This is all probably just part of the old cycle, the corruption of prosperity, but it still hurts terribly. Q. You've been one of the few conservative (some might even say libertarian at times) commentators in Connecticut for decades. Have your political views changed at all since you were named JI's managing edi- tor in 1974? What influenced your political philosophy? A. This is a misperception. I have been caricatured as conservative mainly for complaining that state and local govern- ment now are operated almost entirely for the benefit of their own employees because the government employee unions control the majority political party and the minor- ity party has been too scared to object, and for complaining that government services even for the most innocent needy are being cannibalized to keep the unions happy. In Connecticut politics you are judged positively only if you are subservient to the government employee unions. It doesn't matter if you oppose all the stupid imperial wars and the bailouts of the investment banks, nor if you want Glass-Steagall restored, support same- sex marriage and drug decriminalization, defend the civil rights of Muslims, endorse affordable housing in exclusive suburbs, oppose plutocrats who buy nominations for high office and get threatened with libel litigation by them, support freedom of information, and strive to hold govern- ment to account. No, in Connecticut you can't be considered a liberal if you're not a tool of the government employee unions. Q. You've been a very critical voice of state government over the years. What steps must lawmakers take to create financial and economic stability in the state? A. First we would have to unfix the so- called "fixed costs" and subject them to the ordinary democratic process. Most of these costs involve the compensation of state and municipal employees and these costs constitute more than half the state budget Chris Powell Managing Editor, Journal Inquirer By Patricia Daddona pdaddona@HartfordBusiness.com T he 58-acre, 48-year-old former UConn satellite campus in West Hartford is big, with pockets of contamination, and as of this past summer, empty. Large, complicated sites like this one, which was vacated last year as UConn moved to downtown Hartford, can be a challenge to market, especially in a real es- tate environment dominated by developers who want to invest in growth states like South Carolina or Texas. Now that West Hartford has formally rejected a $1 million purchase-and-sale agreement from UConn — mainly because of the remaining (though partially remedi- ated) polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) contamination from the 1960s — the town is studying property reuses by launching a community engagement effort, Town Manager Matthew Hart says. At the same time, the owner and seller, UConn, is actively — but not aggres- sively — marketing the property through a dedicated online website, while keeping communication with the town open, says the school's spokesperson Stephanie Reitz. Effective marketing strategies for sprawl- ing properties like this one involve parallel efforts to determine market demand, finan- cial feasibility and community preferences through an engaging "visioning" process, says Mike Goman, a principal with East Hartford real estate advisors Goman + York. "We don't like to see pretty pictures of things that will never get built," Goman says, referring to sellers who don't evalu- ate the market and community input in tandem first to get a realistic picture of what might work at a given site. Since the town rejected the purchase Dec. 12, UConn has fielded an undisclosed number of inquiries from possible buyers, but spent little on marketing the property, handling the queries in-house, Reitz said. "We're watching the town's engagement process while at the same time keeping our options open and talking with poten- tial buyers who contact us," Reitz said. "You can put it out on the internet and get info about the site in the hands of as many developers as you can," Goman ob- served when asked about the university's approach. "We're not big believers in that. We think it's better to start with a really deep understanding of the market and layer on top of that what the community can support and thinks is a good idea." Another real estate consultant with 35 years' experience, Nicholas Morizio, Colliers International's Connecticut and Western Massachusetts president, says UConn is smart to work collaboratively, if informally with the town. West Hartford has all the control for what ultimately can be approved there through zoning laws, he said. Morizio, who graduated from UConn after spending a year on its West Hartford campus, says he estimates a charge to market the property would be 3 percent to 5 percent of the sales price. "You've got to find out what the commu- nity wants, and is it feasible," Morizio says. "Meet with the town, ask them what they're looking for, and then come back to reality and say, 'OK, this works; this doesn't work.' " Development options A 2016 conceptual site development analysis by civil engineering and landscape architecture firm Milone & MacBroom shows possible housing, as well as passive and active athletic and recreational uses for the property that would fit in with the environment, existing zoning rules and the character of the area. That includes private property owners and the University of St. Joseph as neighbors, Reitz and Hart said. Existing zoning rules permit single- Pitching a Campus Marketing UConn's former West Hartford digs for redevelopment a tricky venture Realty experts say the town of West Hartford and UConn must create a more coordinated effort to sell the school's former campus (above) in town. PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED

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