XL Center renovation | Page 2 | The Boneyard

XL Center renovation

beerfan said:
What sucked so bad about it that you had to make this post. I like the XL games, a lot of pregame restaurant options and for those who like to drink you can get a beer during the game. Gampel games are great but getting there and parking is a pain and the pre-post game is non existent.
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The arena blows. Parking is so much more easier at Gampel. You don't have restaurants on campus that are great but at the end of the day it's about the games.
 
The city needs to connect to the waterfront and the highways need to go underground. They blew a chance to add a casino venue to the convention center which would make the area more competitive with other venues. Adding more upscale housing with mixed use along the riverfront, and subsidized artist space in downtown would have been helpful. Treeing Main Street and recapturing parking space with green space would help. Adding trolley service from and to the ballpark, convention center, xl and bushnell park would help visitors. Establishing a reduced tax housing zone would help. No vision.
 
Put a roof on the Rent, and add about a 1 mile platform between Hartford and East Hartford... then remove the East.
 
When I was a kid, the Hartford Civic Center was my only live UConn game experience since it was a while before I want to my first game at Gampel. That was back in the mid 90’s when it was almost impossible to get UConn basketball tickets at Gampel. When I attended my first game at Gampel, I was honestly stunned by how much different/better the experience is at Gampel compared to Hartford.

With that said, I still have great memories of going to games at the XL Center. Even though its old and needs serious work, its not exactly falling apart, and the place still gets loud for it to be a nice home court advantage.
 
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Dream Jobbed 2.0 said:
Absolutely criminal that there’s nothing to do along the River in Hartford.
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www.riverfront.org

Riverfront Recapture

Since 1981, we have led the effort to revitalize the banks of the Connecticut River in Hartford and East Hartford. We’ve transformed the Riverfront from an overgrown area that was walled off by flood dikes and cut off by Interstate 91 into four public parks connected by riverwalks.
www.riverfront.org www.riverfront.org
 
superjohn said:
84 absolutely killed Hartford, there's a reason other cities don't run a highway through the city fracturing the city and taking it away from the water which is it's greatest asset. Sure, they've made a million other mistakes but you build out from the river, you don't separate youself from it and fracture neighborhoods.
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Sadly this is one of Middletown’s biggest struggles too with Route 9 separating the river from downtown. We have harbor park, the boathouses, and Canoe Club but it could be so much more.
 
Bezzz said:
www.riverfront.org

Riverfront Recapture

Since 1981, we have led the effort to revitalize the banks of the Connecticut River in Hartford and East Hartford. We’ve transformed the Riverfront from an overgrown area that was walled off by flood dikes and cut off by Interstate 91 into four public parks connected by riverwalks.
www.riverfront.org www.riverfront.org
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I mean drink beer and look at water
 
krinklecut said:
Hartford won't be able to thrive until they bury 84. A raised highway going down the middle of a city suffocates it. We can keep arguing about what we can do about downtown, but until 84 is a tunnel, Hartford won't thrive.
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I agree with this and so do the 6 million people of thriving metro Atlanta who feel the impacts of the downtown connector.

Somehow I'm not sure 84 is the reason for Hartford's troubles.
 
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Connecticut has proven to be a classic case of short term thinking and failing to capitalize and invest in growth when times are good. But hey, if taxes and the business climate aren't the problem and burying 84 will bring back the thousands of high paying jobs lost to corporate moves or outsourcing, let's start digging.
 
Hartford was doomed when the city lines were drawn. Hartford proper is too small and when people started fleeing for the suburbs it was left with blight. People couldn’t relocate to different parts of the city as their needs changed, it wasn’t big enough. They also couldn’t get away from the new interstate in their back yard. Ultimately, this resulted in segregation and the decline of the public school system. Corporate types moved to West Hartford and beyond. Once the Hartford public schools weren’t considered safe and of good quality to many people, it was lights out. It is still a problem. I have a friend that invested quite a bit in Hartford rental property and bought a nice house there. Once he got married he couldn’t see sending his kids to school there and they left


I-84 supposedly marked the beginning of the end and I suspect there is something to it in this case. Imagine what it is like to live in a beautiful city with unique neighborhoods, wealth, business, theater and food, by many accounts, one of America’s truly great cities (dead serious, Hartford was big time). Then imagine having somebody build a highway right through the middle of it. So many people would perceive it as ruined and permanently changed for the worse. It took away the feeling of a tight knit community and made it sterile, loud and fractured.

One thing I notice is that many people long for the way Hartford was in the 80’s and 90’s. It wasn’t good then either. There were different positive things going on, like Whaler games and the Civic Center wasn’t considered old and nasty, but still, the city was dead. There are more restaurants and stores now, with the exception of the mall back then, almost everything was closed or closing. G Fox closing really sucked the last bit of positivity out of the town. Hartford has been going downhill since the 60’s. Efforts to bring it back have been impressive but the inability to get people of all races and education levels to repopulate the city has been a killer. Without a smoother way to say it, you’ve got to make white people comfortable moving there. That’s a tough task. It doesn’t seem to want to happen organically and I’ve always felt some targeted effort would need to happen to start that trend. I’m not sure how you’d do it though.

I had an idea in the late 90’s that I proposed in a Courant letter to offer unique academic programs in Hartford and allow kids from outside the city to enroll. Now days, I’d suggest advanced coding, app building, maybe biomedical engineering. The state could fund it as an investment in the city that would keep talent home and help the region as a whole. My thought was that if a handful of brave suburban kids came in to take advantage of it, maybe more would come and then people would start looking at Hartford as viable living option again.
 
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Woof 101 said:
Obviously the Whalers leaving town was also a major hit.
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THE major hit. The Whalers could have been saved. Weicker delivered them to the group that moved them two years later. As a result, he served on the Compuware board for years.
 
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Hoophound said:
Hartford was doomed when the city lines were drawn. Hartford proper is too small and when people started fleeing for the suburbs it was left with blight. People couldn’t relocate to different parts of the city as their needs changed, it was too small. They also couldn’t get away from the new interstate in their back yard. Ultimately, this resulted in segregation and the decline of the public school system. Once Hartford public schools weren’t considered safe and of good quality to many people, it was lights out. It is still a problem. I have a friend that invested quite a bit in Hartford rental property and bought a nice house there. Once he got married he couldn’t see sending his kids to school there and they left


I-84 supposedly marked the beginning of the end and I suspect there is something to it in this case. Imagine what it is like to live in a beautiful city with unique neighborhoods, wealth, theater and food, by many accounts, one of America’s truly great citie (dead serious, Hartford was big time). Then imagine having somebody build a highway right through the middle of it. So many people would perceive it as ruined and permanently changed for the worse. It took away the feeling a of a tight knit town and made it sterile, loud and fractured.

One thing I notice is that many people long for the way Hartford was in the 80’s and 90’s. It wasn’t good then either. There were different positive things going on, like Whaler games and the Civic Center wasn’t considered old and nasty, but still, the city was dead. There are more restaurants and stores now, with the exception of the mall back then, almost everything was closed or closing. G Fox closing really sucked the last bit of positivity out of the town. Hartford has been going downhill since the 60’s. Efforts to bring it back have been impressive but the inability to get people of all races and education levels to repopulate the city has been a killer. Without a smoother way to say it, you’ve got to make white people comfortable moving there. That’s a tough task. It doesn’t seem to want to happen organically and I’ve always felt some targeted effort would need to happen to start that trend. I’m not sure how you’d do it though.

I had an idea in the late 90’s that I proposed in a Courant letter to offer unique academic programs in Hartford and allow kids from outside the city to enroll. Now days, I’d suggest advanced coding, app building, maybe biomedical engineering. The state could fund it as an investment in the city that would keep talent home and help the region as a whole. My thought was that if a handful of brave suburban kids came in to take advantage of it, maybe more would come and then people would start looking at Hartford as viable living option again.
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Your first sentence says it all.

If only there were examples of US cities that enlarged their boundaries, sometimes by incorporating adjacent towns. Oh wait...
 
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mjmoney23 said:
Those seats aren't cheap, that's for sure! What I hope doesnt happen is that the lower bowl is revamped yet the piss poor sightlines are still the same from the upper. The less seats in the lower will move people up to some of the worst seats in the USA. After about row M in the upper level you can look down and see the clouds.
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Hoophound said:
Hartford was doomed when the city lines were drawn. Hartford proper is too small and when people started fleeing for the suburbs it was left with blight. People couldn’t relocate to different parts of the city as their needs changed, it was too small. They also couldn’t get away from the new interstate in their back yard. Ultimately, this resulted in segregation and the decline of the public school system. Once Hartford public schools weren’t considered safe and of good quality to many people, it was lights out. It is still a problem. I have a friend that invested quite a bit in Hartford rental property and bought a nice house there. Once he got married he couldn’t see sending his kids to school there and they left


I-84 supposedly marked the beginning of the end and I suspect there is something to it in this case. Imagine what it is like to live in a beautiful city with unique neighborhoods, wealth, theater and food, by many accounts, one of America’s truly great citie (dead serious, Hartford was big time). Then imagine having somebody build a highway right through the middle of it. So many people would perceive it as ruined and permanently changed for the worse. It took away the feeling a of a tight knit town and made it sterile, loud and fractured.

One thing I notice is that many people long for the way Hartford was in the 80’s and 90’s. It wasn’t good then either. There were different positive things going on, like Whaler games and the Civic Center wasn’t considered old and nasty, but still, the city was dead. There are more restaurants and stores now, with the exception of the mall back then, almost everything was closed or closing. G Fox closing really sucked the last bit of positivity out of the town. Hartford has been going downhill since the 60’s. Efforts to bring it back have been impressive but the inability to get people of all races and education levels to repopulate the city has been a killer. Without a smoother way to say it, you’ve got to make white people comfortable moving there. That’s a tough task. It doesn’t seem to want to happen organically and I’ve always felt some targeted effort would need to happen to start that trend. I’m not sure how you’d do it though.

I had an idea in the late 90’s that I proposed in a Courant letter to offer unique academic programs in Hartford and allow kids from outside the city to enroll. Now days, I’d suggest advanced coding, app building, maybe biomedical engineering. The state could fund it as an investment in the city that would keep talent home and help the region as a whole. My thought was that if a handful of brave suburban kids came in to take advantage of it, maybe more would come and then people would start looking at Hartford as viable living option again.
Expand ...
I don't think Hartford is unique. Look at what happened to every major city in CT. They were all manufacturing based which paid a lot of taxes. Bridgeport, New Haven, Waterbury, New Britain. Then the interstate highway system made it easy for folks who still had jobs in cities to commute and go home to the suburbs. It has been an exodus and now there are many less good paying jobs so no need to commute. I see the need to bring back manufacturing or high tech well paying jobs. You cannot build wealth without somewhere creating value added labor (manufacturing, construction, mining, etc.) Downsize government and bring back jobs. We are 22 Trillion plus in national debt and eventually the dollar will no longer be the world reserve currency. If that day happens we will see inflation that will bring us to our knees. That picture of the foot (a well dressed man) kicking the can (down the road) is very apropo. Tick tick tick................. Ask yourself: Would you invest in any of these cities (without friends in government of course)?
 
Waquoit said:
If you think parking is so much easier at Gampel, you're doing it wrong.
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I think you’re doing it wrong when you go to Gampel. Plenty of good parking at gampel. Just don’t park in the main lot
 
CashewCrew said:
The XL hate is very unwarranted on this board. It's tiring.
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It's not just XL Center. It's Hartford. it's Connecticut.

It's endless negativity and self-flagellation. I don't know what it is. Too many Catholics, maybe?

Some people view everything through the prism of Government Is Bad. And everything comes back to that.

UConn spending too much? Cut funding. Tuition raising? How could you cut funding?!

Some folks just want to bitch and moan. I don't know. I think everyone needs to chill out and go to therapy and relax a little. Yes, life is Hell, but what else you got going on. Try to enjoy yourself once in awhile.

Anyway. Hartford needs something. The idea that the middle of the state is just not going to have any venue whatsoever for 8-15K is insane.

Also the idea that Hartford is the only city with a terrible highway running through it is hilarious. Go to another city, really, almost anywhere.
 
superjohn said:
Why would you live there if you hate it so much?
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as long as i had to work in hartford i wanted to walk to work, walk to UConn games, and go home for lunch every day. GF also lived downtown. but the thought of sitting in rush hour/construction traffic for an hour every day just to get to west hart was most depressing of all
 
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dennismenace said:
I don't think Hartford is unique. Look at what happened to every major city in CT. They were all manufacturing based which paid a lot of taxes. Bridgeport, New Haven, Waterbury, New Britain. Then the interstate highway system made it easy for folks who still had jobs in cities to commute and go home to the suburbs. It has been an exodus and now there are many less good paying jobs so no need to commute. I see the need to bring back manufacturing or high tech well paying jobs. You cannot build wealth without somewhere creating value added labor (manufacturing, construction, mining, etc.) Downsize government and bring back jobs. We are 22 Trillion plus in national debt and eventually the dollar will no longer be the world reserve currency. If that day happens we will see inflation that will bring us to our knees. That picture of the foot (a well dressed man) kicking the can (down the road) is very apropo. Tick tick tick................. Ask yourself: Would you invest in any of these cities (without friends in government of course)?
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The county seat not far from where I live was getting rundown, dingy and dangerous. People left it at the end of the workday and didn't look back. It isn't a major city like Hartford but I think its history is instructive.

There was a major department store, not unlike GFox, which was struggling. The owners redeveloped it very intelligently with upscale apartments above and smaller restaurants and retail stores down below. Kind of like an upscale and larger Storrs Central. No surprise that the concept was resisted because "it was a landmark" which it was. A failing business, but a landmark. After months of acrimonious hearings, the plan was approved and the project was built. It kick started the night life and turned the city around. More upscale apartments went in and then upscale ($1M) town homes. It now is vibrant, safe, walkable and a destination. Note that this "redevelopment" was done with private money. I view this as a good thing as people seem to make better decisions when their capital is being invested. Note also that this turnaround managed to happen without annexing the surrounding communities.

Now Hartford is much larger and thus harder to turnaround, but it can be done there as well, if the redevelopment is thoughtfully done. I am not particularly hopeful that it will happen as CT is incredibly shortsighted, but it definitely could be done.

I will say that not dividing the the city is absolutely critical. As others have noted, 84 did just that.
 
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Irish Loop said:
It's not just XL Center. It's Hartford. it's Connecticut.

It's endless negativity and self-flagellation. I don't know what it is. Too many Catholics, maybe?

Some people view everything through the prism of Government Is Bad. And everything comes back to that.

UConn spending too much? Cut funding. Tuition raising? How could you cut funding?!

Some folks just want to bitch and moan. I don't know. I think everyone needs to chill out and go to therapy and relax a little. Yes, life is Hell, but what else you got going on. Try to enjoy yourself once in awhile.

Anyway. Hartford needs something. The idea that the middle of the state is just not going to have any venue whatsoever for 8-15K is insane.

Also the idea that Hartford is the only city with a terrible highway running through it is hilarious. Go to another city, really, almost anywhere.
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You're preaching to the choir. I moved to Hartford after 4 years in the suburbs because I think it's what the city needs - more young people to actually LIVE here.

I just think the incessant negativity and the "just tear it down" attitude is the wrong one. No one ever does anything about it or puts a real plan forward.
 
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