The most recent setback for the Front Street project on Columbus Avenue near the Convention Center leaves Hartford with a critical gap in its effort to revitalize the downtown, says Fred V. Carstensen, director of the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis at the University of Connecticut.

The Hartford Courant recently reported that Front Street developer HB Nitkin will drop its housing component and push ahead with retail and entertainment — at some point. The developer initially planned a $60 million project that would include 115 apartments above an estimated 65,000 square feet of store space.

"You have this convention center and you have the science museum and then you have this wasteland between it and the Wadsworth [Atheneum Art Museum] and the downtown restaurants like Trumbull Kitchen and Max Downtown," said Carstensen.

West Hartford's city center is "phenomenally successful" by contrast, Carstensen said, because it feels like a small area, full of life and people even late at night.

"The idea of walking to Blue Back Square or from Blue Back to any of the restaurants doesn't feel like a long walk because it's all connected," said Carstensen. "There are storefronts to look in."

The state signed a deal to develop Front Street with New York-based HB Nitkin in 2005, after another New York developer, Richard Cohen, dropped out.

Last May, an HB Nitkin spokesman said the company expected to begin construction in October 2007, and then later moved the starting date to this spring. But given current economic conditions, HB Nitkin won't be breaking ground this spring either.

"They seem to reel from one trauma to the next," Carstensen said of the developers of the project, which is being managed by the Capital City Economic Development Authority, a quasi-public agency formed in 1998.

Hartford Chief Operating Officer Lee C. Erdmann said the state is "rethinking its strategy" on the Front Street project, but said he couldn't give any more details until the state was ready to make a formal announcement. He said Mayor Eddie Perez has been involved in those discussions.

The CCEDA has set aside $21 million of state subsidies for Front Street, but $12 million of that is specifically for housing. "If [HB Nitkin is] not doing housing it's not going to be used," said CCEDA spokeswoman Terryl Mitchell Smith of the $12 million. The remaining $9 million in state funding is available for the retail and entertainment portion of the project.

"Our goal is to work with the developers on getting the project going and getting it done," said Smith.

She said CCEDA remains optimistic about the progress being made downtown.

"You have a wonderful convention center that's been doing great business since it opened its doors," said Smith. "You've got people living downtown. The apartments at Trumbull on the Park are 98 percent full."

But Carstensen says his discussions with people in the business community show Hartford has a long way to go.

"If you want to hire somebody to work in the Hartford area where would you take them?" said Carstensen. "Right now where you take them is West Hartford. I don't think there's any place in downtown Hartford you could take a prospective hire and say, 'Wouldn't you love to work here?'" ¦

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