It was once a power address.
Tens of thousands travel Hartford’s Washington Street each week to two major hospitals, courthouses and Trinity College, but the street — with its high-profile mix of uses — has fallen short of the stature that would be expected of a thoroughfare with the gold dome of the state Capitol at its northern end.
“To me, Washington Street ought to be a monumental street,” Michael W. Freimuth, executive director of the Capital Region Development Authority, said. “It leads right to the Capitol. It’s got the courthouses, the state buildings, the hospitals, Trinity College as strengths. It just needs to be knitted back together.”
In Hartford, there is often debate around reconnecting neighborhoods in the city that have become physically isolated. The Washington Street corridor is another example and is drawing renewed attention amid Hartford Hospital’s plans to invest $1 billion in its campus over the next decade. That investment builds on an ambitious, $326 million expansion by Connecticut Children’s, expected to be completed by the end of 2025.
And some see the neighboring Bushnell South development of up to 1,000 apartments on a swath of parking lots and empty buildings as way to more strongly connect Washington Street to downtown.
Washington Street has been on the city of Hartford’s redevelopment radar. Now, the city has a tentative agreement with a Massachusetts developer to convert the former, city-owned Hartford Trade School across from Superior Court into nearly 50, mixed-income apartments.
How all this gets sorted out could be helped by a study that is expected to be launched early next year.
The community-based Southside Institutions Neighborhood Alliance — better known by its acronym SINA — hopes a vision for better connecting the civil and criminal courthouses with the hospital campuses will emerge, thereby changing the nature of the street.
“So it’s not just a place that you drive through, but it’s a place where you walk,” Logan Singerman, director of community partnerships at SINA, said. “It’s a place where you stop, where you spend time. Kind of like what everyone wants in their neighborhood.”
That vision will require the addition of more housing, like what the city has in mind at the trade school, and storefronts that provide services for workers, visitors and residents Frog Hollow neighborhood.
“People will be going in and out of businesses, and there’s just more sense of this is a place where you grab a cup of coffee, grab a bite to eat, where you get your clothes done at a dry cleaners,” Singerman said. “It just has more of a feel of a hub of commerce, of community, and a more livable walkable neighborhood.”
How easily storefront tenants could be attracted to newly-created space is uncertain. So far, for instance, retail space in the parking garage at the corner of Washington and Buckingham streets, has remained empty.
A state spokesman said no viable offers have surfaced since the garage was completed in 2019.
‘A lot of singles and doubles’
Aside from the major investments by the hospitals, the city says it believes the evolution of Washington Street will come in smaller redevelopment projects that will gradually change the perception of the corridor.
“In terms of what we are trying to do there, this is going to be one of those where it’s a lot of singles and doubles around the billion dollar investment by the hospital,” said Jeff Auker, the city’s director of development services.
The development of more housing is a priority for the city and what the city hopes to do at the trade school at 110 Washington St. is an example.
“You’re going to need plenty of housing for your nurses, your techs, for your researchers that are making entry-level wages at times,” Auker said. “So we have to figure out, not just mixed-use in terms of retail and housing, but the types of housing.”
There also are competing priorities along Washington.
Much of the property is privately-owned. Preservationists and the neighborhood want to retain as much of the street’s surviving architectural heritage as possible, waging some high-profile fights.
One recent win came when Connecticut Children’s agreed to relocate four homes near Washington Street to accommodate the construction of a new parking garage.
Connecticut Children’s also agreed to find a developer to construct apartments over retail space on land it owns across Washington Street from where it is now building its new tower. That wouldn’t happen until the tower and the parking garage are built.
For their part, Hartford Hospital and Connecticut Children’s look to new, innovative towers that convey an image of cutting-edge medical care and the resources and expertise to back it all up.
Once a power address
Questions about Washington Street’s future are nothing new and are woven deeply into its history.
In the 1850s, Washington Street became a power address for the city’s elite, long before a later migration to Hartford’s West End and Prospect Street. The mansions that once lined the street are gone now, with the exception of the Samuel N. Kellogg House, the home of a dry goods merchant.
Meanwhile, Hartford Hospital was established in 1854, marking its first presence in the city, one that would eventually grow to encompass 65 acres off Washington Street.
By the 1920s, the landscape of Washington Street had been dramatically altered, with a new identity as Hartford’s “Automobile Row.”
There were a half-dozen dealerships, including Buick, Packard, Ford and Chrysler, as the demand for automobiles soared. Just one of those remains at 122 Washington, a building that is now vacant.
In 1929, the imposing, four-story courthouse at 95 Washington Street opened its doors solidifying the northern end of the corridor as a hall of justice.
Some have said an opportunity was missed in not pushing Washington Street as the site of a new, $335 million federal courthouse. The new facility will replace the Abraham A. Ribicoff Federal Building and Courthouse on Main Street.
The two remaining options being considered by the federal government are Woodland Street in Asylum Hill and Allyn Street downtown.
‘No-man’s land’
On a recent morning, SINA’s Singerman walks along Washington Street, pointing out properties and their future potential.
He stops at the intersection of Washington and Park Street. This intersection, Singerman said, should be a focal point for revitalization. On the southwestern corner, there is a wide sidewalk area, inlaid with mosaic design. But the view across the street is desolate with a wide swath of asphalt surrounded by a chain-link fence.
“The corner of Park and Washington, it’s kind of a little bit of a no-man’s land right now,” Singerman said. “You would hope it could play this beautiful connecting intersection. You just have to get someone moving on it.”
The intersection, Singerman said, could connect the courthouse area to the north with the hospitals and Trinity College to the south.
SINA’s study is likely to take into account the city’s 15-year development plan, released in 2020, that suggests the hospitals should anchor a South End Health & Innovation District. The district was listed as among 10 that could transform the city by 2035, Hartford’s 400th anniversary.
SINA is a partnership of Hartford Hospital, Connecticut Children’s and Trinity College.
At CRDA, which provided a $25,000 grant to help fund SINA’s study, Freimuth said the key to making progress along Washington will be prioritizing what projects should come first, figuring out how they will be financed and then getting a shovel in the ground.
The quasi-public CRDA is a key driver of financing behind Bushnell South and housing projects around the city.
“So what I suggested to SINA is that I’m not interested in another master plan,” Freimuth said. “We’ve talked about this endlessly. There has to be a list of projects. It has to be a list of projects. It has to be a list of priorities. Let’s get a consensus on that, and then, let’s go to work on the first project.”
“And that’s what this thing has got to evolve into,” Freimuth said. “I mean, I’m done with pretty pictures and another plan on the shelf.”
Considering all the travel on Washington Street and renewed attention given the hospital expansions, neighborhood leaders say the time is right to take a close look at where Washington Street is headed in the future.
“We just think that this is a really prominent street that can be so vastly improved,” said Carey Shea, co-chair of the Frog Hollow Neighborhood Revitalization Zone, which focuses on revitalization efforts. “And fortunately, we have these major institutional players and government to participate in this. And a really enthusiastic and activated residential community. It’s a place whose time has come.”
Here are 7 properties along Hartford’s Washington Street to watch:
Former Second Church of Christ, Scientist, Lafayette Street, Hartford (Courant File Photo)
Second Church of Christ, Scientist
Address: 129 Lafayette St.
Built: 1924-1929
Owner: Vox Church, Branford
Latest outlook: On the northern end of the Washington Street corridor, the long-vacant Second Church of Christ Scientist was sold by the state in June to Vox Church for $750,000. The state had paid $2.3 million in 2007 but never found a viable use for it. Vox has said it plans to invest $4 million in renovations to the building where it will hold Sunday services and base community outreach programs. A timetable for completion has not been disclosed. The church is expanding rapidly in Connecticut and western Massachusetts.
Hartford Trade School
Address: 110 Washington St.
Built: 1929
Owner: City of Hartford
Latest outlook: Built during a push for education around building trades, a gable stone on the structure’s façade sums up the building’s original purpose: “He who hath a trade hath an estate.” In recent years, the building has been used for adult education and a warming shelter. A tentative agreement between the city and Arch Communities of Massachusetts would create 47 mixed-income apartments. The agreement still needs approval by the Hartford City Council and details, such as a development cost and projected timeline, have not been disclosed by the city.
John P. Nielson & Sons auto dealership
Address: 122 Washington St
Built: 1927
Owner: 122 Washington Street LLC, Eliot B. Gersten, principal
Latest Outlook: This former car dealership is one of the last vestiges of when Washington Street was the city’s automobile row in the 1920s and 1930s. The owner hopes that investments and expansions by nearby Hartford Hospital and Connecticut Children’s will serve as a redevelopment catalyst for 122 Washington.
Washington Diner
Address: 175 Washington St.
Built: 1946, remodeled 1963
Owner: Town & Country KSM, LLC, West Hartford
Latest Outlook: The Washington Diner closed more than two decades ago, and the property has been vacant since. In 2020, the diner was listed as among the top 10 most endangered historic properties by the Hartford Preservation Alliance. The property’s deterioration landed it on a recent survey of blighted properties in the city. Town & Country KSM’s principal, Stella Menoutis, died recently, and the property is now in probate court, leaving its future uncertain.
The former, now vacant apartments at 216-218 and 224 Washington St. were spared demolition last year. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)
“Presidents Corner”
Addresses: 216-218 and 224 Washington St; 146 Jefferson St.
Built: circa 1920; circa 1890
Owner: Hartford Hospital
Latest Outlook: Last year, Hartford Hospital backed off a plan to demolish the three structures, after being cited by the city for their deterioration. The hospital says it now plans to save the facades of the three buildings and combine the properties into an $80 million medical office, likely providing community-based health services. If approved, construction could begin next summer and be completed in 2027.
Samuel N. Kellogg House
Address: 247 Washington St.
Built: circa 1875
Owner: Hartford Hospital
Latest Outlook: The Kellogg House is one of the last structures that recalls a time when Washington Street was lined with mansions and was, as some have said, Prospect Street before there was a Prospect Street. The Kellogg House was converted to a funeral home in 1936 and served that purpose for decades under three separate owners. The estate of the last funeral home operator, Gennaro J. Capobianco, sold the structure in Hartford Hospital in 2006. There are no specific plans for the property, but there has been some suggestion of conversion to urgent care with an addition. The building is on the city’s blight radar.
Mobil Gas Station
Address: 234 Washington St.
Built: 1932
Owner: Alliance Energy Corp.
Latest Outlook: A gas station has anchored the southeast corner of Washington and Jefferson streets since the 1930s, responding to the rise of the automobile. The gas station property is integral to plans by Hartford Hospital to build a new parking garage of up to 1,600 spaces that eventually would run the full length of Jefferson Street from Seymour to Washington. Construction of the new parking garage — to address a parking crunch at the hospital — is expected to begin in December with the demolition of an existing one at the corner of Jefferson and Seymour
SOURCES: Hartford Preservation Alliance; city of Hartford, Courant reporting
Kenneth R. Gosselin can be reached at [email protected].
