New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
New health care training center looks to boost Hartford’s economy
HARTFORD — Hartford Healthcare is expanding its efforts to help revitalize the Capitol City’s downtown while also consolidating its real estate portfolio.
Jeff Flaks, Hartford Healthcare’s president and chief executive officer, said Tuesday his organization will open a 7,000-squarefoot orientation and training center at One Financial Plaza, which is commonly referred to as “The Gold Building.” The space will be located across the street from Hartford Healthcare’s new headquarters at 110 Pearl St., where it has 110,000 square feet of space, according to Flaks.
He said 350 Hartford Healthcare employees are already working in the
Pearl Street office space, with another 200 workers scheduled to move in by Oct. 1. By relocating workers to the Pearl Street building, Hartford Healthcare has reduced its real estate portfolio by about 10 percent, according to Flaks.
“These are largely administrative functions,” Flaks said of those jobs moving to the Pearl Street offices. “We have people who are going to be using parking spots, go to restaurants, shop at businesses.”
The new orientation and training center, as well as the new headquarters, are part of “a broader expansion of our strategy to reignite the spark of the Capitol City,” he said.
“This a movement to create vitality, to really create an urban campus,” Flaks said. “We want to reignite the spark in the city. We want to create an environment where people want to come to work.”
Flaks declined to say how much Hartford Healthcare was spending on the orientation and training center, which he referred to as a talent development center. Rebecca Stewart, a spokesperson for the health system, said Hartford Healthcare hasn’t yet signed a lease on the space in the Gold Building “so while there will be savings, it’s too early to share specifics.”
Stewart said the Gold Building space will have room for between 200 and 250 people.
Flaks said the talent development center is the latest phase in an effort that Hartford Healthcare officials launched in June 2020. The talent development center is scheduled to open later this year or in early 2023.
Fred Carstensen, a University of Connecticut professor of finance and economics, said while Hartford Healthcare’s efforts to stimulate the city’s downtown are laudable, “the real issue is when you bring people downtown, will they stay afterward and go to restaurants and cultural events?”
“The state is staying with a lot of remote working, so there’s a real question about how much this will pay off,” said Carstensen, who is also director of the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis. “What you’d really like to see is a whole raft of these things. But it’s good they (Hartford Healthcare officials) are trying to do this because every little bit helps.”
Flaks said the training center will be used for symposiums, conferences and community meetings that will attract more people downtown. He said the health care organization has shown its commitment to urban areas outside of Hartford as well.
As one example of that commitment, he pointed to the Bridgeport outdoor concert venue, which opened last year and bears the Hartford Healthcare name.
“We’re going to be bringing excitement to Hartford by bringing events that will make people want to come to downtown,” Flaks said.
Earlier this month, the health care organization, city officials and several community groups announced the launch of DominGO! Hartford, which they described as an openstreets program that will be held one Sunday a month this summer. The program, which is named after the Spanish word for Sunday, is a partnership between Hartford Healthcare, the city and several community organizations.
“This DominGO! open streets initiative fits squarely in this mission of creating healthier communities right here in Hartford,” Mayor Luke Bronin said when the programs were announced. The goal of closing certain roads in Hartford is to promote healthy habits such as walking, riding bikes, jogging, dancing and spending time outside with others.