Hartford must have powerful voice in courthouse site pick
The reactions came soon after the news had been shared about three sites in downtown Hartford being considered as the location for a new federal courthouse.
The U.S. General Services Administration, with oversight on development of federal buildings, named the potential sites for the $335 million project that would replace the aging Abraham A. Ribicoff Federal Building and Courthouse on Main Street.
The sites: a parking lot on Allyn Street; a parking lot at 10 Ford
St., (where the former Parkview Hilton hotel sat until it was torn down in 1990); and a parking lot in the area known as “Bushnell South,” at the corner of Capitol Avenue and Hudson Street.
that might sound like an awful lot of parking lots, but the concerns that arose are about the value of the land for mixeduse redevelopment, including that commodity so precious in Connecticut: housing.
Mayor Luke Bronin was the first to point out, and we think rightly so, that the city appreciates the commitment to building a new courthouse in Hartford, but that it needs to be “in the right location and with the right design, a courthouse could complement our economic development work.”
Even more importantly, Bronin noted an issue that could impact residents in a city that needs all the revenue it can get. “It would be a shame to put a tax exempt courthouse in a location where there are active efforts underway to pursue taxable residential development,” he said.
Capital Region Development Authority Executive Director Michael W. Freimuth also raised questions about the choice of potential sites and the tax consequences. “This is a large tax-exempt use with marginal economic spin so we really need to be conscious to get optimum balance between the federal needs/ requirements and the existing municipal plans and efforts at these locations,” Freimuth told The Courant. THE CRDA is the quasi-public that is overseeing the area’s development.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1, also weighed in, saying in a joint statement they were pleased that the courthouse project was proceeding. But the lawmakers also noted they would work closely with GSA and the city “to ensure that the final site selection is consistent with the city’s economic development needs.”
We know that Hartford is very developed and land for any structure is not easy to come by. The city also has multiple brownfields — those are polluted sites — that need to be cleaned up and that can present limits on how that land can be used.
Add these constraints to the worries Bronin has about tax rolls, locations and complementing development, and the choice of a site for a new courthouse becomes all the more important.
We understand the reasoning behind the goal of new courthouse:
There are space, security and building condition issues with the current structure on Main Street.
Further, a new courthouse would have 11 courtrooms and 18 chambers for judges, compared to the current eight courtrooms and 11 chambers. That’s more space for more government business to get done.
There’s no timetable yet for a decision on the site of the courthouse, and groundbreaking could be years away.
Bronin and other officials want to work with the GSA during the site selection process, and along with further study of the sites there needs to be a period of public comment.
Bronin and others, including Blumenthal and Larson, must be given every opportunity to work with GSA to minimize or eliminate any tax impacts and ensure this project benefits the city and the federal government.