‘We want to make it a place to be’
What would proposed wagering venue at XL Center look like?
HARTFORD — Sports betting could come to Hartford’s XL Center this fall in a proposal that would carve out a drab section of the arena facing Ann Uccello Street and replace it with a venue tricked out for wagering, combined with a bar and a restaurant.
The venue could cost up to $4 million and would be open to both event ticket holders and patrons walking in off the street. The sportsbook would include wagering kiosks and counters, boards displaying betting odds and a bank of televisions broadcasting sporting events, all with a view of the arena floor.
The arena’s now, bunker-like appearance from the street along Ann Uccello would be transformed with a sportsbook built out toward the sidewalk over loading dock ramps and enclosed in glass, raising its visibility.
“We want to make it a place to be,” said Michael W. Freimuth, executive director of the Capital Region Development Authority, the quasi-public agency that oversees the arena’s operations. “We want it to be an attraction in and of itself. And we want it to be a place that people know they can go any time of the day or year, and not just when there are events.”
Freimuth said he hopes the project will get on the fast track and be ready for the thick of the football season this fall. The proposal must still be approved by CRDA’S board of directors.
The sportsbook would overlook the Allyn Street corridor running between the rear of the arena and Union Station. Over the last decade, 250 apartments have been added to the area at a
cost of $70 million, including $23 million in CRDA state taxpayer-backed loans.
Freimuth said the sportsbook — to be located directly across the lower half of the arena from the fan club — would expand on the previous investments in the surrounding area. State financing for the new, 4,000-square-foot space is already in hand from funding previously approved for improvements at the arena, Freimuth said.
Ticket-holders in the arena would be able to move back and forth between events and the sportsbook by showing their tickets, Freimuth said.
The addition of a sportsbook at the XL Center comes after state lawmakers approved a long-debated sweeping expansion of legalized gambling in Connecticut in 2021. The legislation included the creation of sports betting venues at 15 locations, including larger ones in Hartford and Bridgeport.
So far, sports betting appears to be off to a strong start, based on early returns to state coffers. How successful a sportsbook at the XL Center would be is yet to be seen, but Freimuth said projections by the Connecticut Lottery Corp., which controls betting venues, calls for gambling growth at the XL.
Freimuth declined to disclose specifics of those projections because the XL Center is still in contract negotiations with the lottery for hosting the venue and its share of the proceeds. The lottery declined to comment Friday.
If the venue were to prove profitable and able to erase some of the typical yearly losses at the arena, it could help pave the way for a still pending, $100 million makeover of the aging arena that has been debated for years.
Critics say Connecticut should not continue to invest in a state-operated arena that loses money, about $2 million a year. Supporters say a significant makeover is necessary to downtown revitalization and keeping the arena competitive. They also say an upgrade benefits not just Hartford but the surrounding region.
There is funding waiting in the wings. The legislature approved another $65 million in borrowing for the project in 2020, but those funds have yet to be released by the State Bond Commission.
CRDA scrapped the idea of testing the public appetite for sports betting at the XL with an “interim location,” deciding that going all in was the best strategy.
“We figured first blush was going to be lasting blush,” Freimuth said. “And so, we wanted to do it right, once.”
CRDA had considered other locations, including the arena’s lower-level exhibition hall, the skybox-level Coliseum Club and the atrium at the main entrance off Trumbull Street.
The atrium is owned by Northland Investment Corp., and CRDA’S efforts to purchase the space, so far, have been unsuccessful. Such a purchase makes more sense when, or if, the $100 million plan eventually goes forward, the space better used for expanding the concourse, Freimuth said.
Freimuth said locating the sportsbook on the Ann Uccello Street side of the arena is not such a stretch. An even grander, $250 million plan to upgrade, which never gained much traction with legislators, contemplated opening up the Ann Uccello side and making it more visually appealing, Freimuth said.
“It gives us a level of improvements in a part of the building that we haven’t really worked on and it allows us to get at the sports betting thing, which I’m comfortable will be a break-even and headed toward making some money, too,” Freimuth said.