“Government sometimes gets it right,” Malloy told onlookers at the grand opening ceremony for The Zunner Building, a restoration project that has been, according to Lynda Godkin, 15 years in the making.
In this case, the State of Connecticut was a significant source of the funding for what turned a 90-year old, much dilapidated building, into a refreshed mixed-use building with help from Northside Institutions Neighborhood Alliance (NINA).
Besides the State Housing Tax Credit Contribution Program, State Historic Preservation Tax Credit Program, and Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, funding for $2.4 million renovation of 207-215 Garden Street came from the City of Hartford Façade Improvement Program, The Hartford Financial Services Group, Eversource Energy, Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Hartford Community Loan Fund, Travelers, Wells Fargo Bank, Connecticut Natural Gas, and ConnectiCare Insurance Company.
Hartford Community Loan Fund will be moving from Franklin Avenue to the Zunner Buiilding’s third floor. The building contains four residential apartments, one of which is handicap accessible. Three retail spaces, including a restaurant, have been remodeled. State Rep. Matt Ritter, credited with helping to secure funding for the building’s elevator and lobby, shrugged off the applause saying “all I did was nag.”
Before the renovations could happen, NINA needed to get control of the building. Lynda Godkin, Chair of NINA’s Board of Directors, portrayed the site as having been troubled and the source of numerous problems in the neighborhood. In 2008, NINA bought out the lease for the old Ashley Café and shut that down. NINA was then able to buy the building off of the absentee — absentee as in living in New York — landlord. Previous residential tenants had been displaced due to a fire in the building. Photos on site showed the deplorable before conditions. In 2014, NINA renovated Kent Pizza.
Ken Johnson, the Executive Director of NINA, explained that once NINA had control of the building, it was renamed The Zunner Building to honor its architect, George Zunner, Sr., who was responsible for also designing 619 homes in Hartford. Zunner, before coming to Hartford, was a supervisory architect at the World’s Fair in Chicago from 1891-1893.
Andrea Perreira, Executive Director of Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC Hartford), provided early financing for this project and was able to speak to NINA’s persistence. NINA, she said, has a “clear and compelling vision that never fades.”
Mayor Bronin — whose presence at the ribbon cutting was more ceremonial than a reflection of his own involvement in the project, as most of the work was done before his time in office — gave props to all responsible for this renovation, saying that this is “exactly what’s necessary to start to change the whole dynamic.”
The dynamic he was referring to is the revitalization of Asylum Hill and the surrounding neighborhoods after years of neglect. The Chrysalis Center and Liam McGee Memorial Park were among those changed places.
“We don’t have to let ourselves be defined by crisis,” Bronin said.
According to Lynne Godkin, NINA has now worked on 21 homes in the Asylum Hill neighborhood.
Anne Brodsky
I’ve always thought now nice it could be if there were outdoor dining space outside the Zunner Building. Something similar to what Wood ‘n Tap has on Sisson.
Joshua LaPorte
I am not sure if I consider the “liam mcgee memorial park” to be revitalization; it is more of a mothballing project after demolition of a quality structure to lower the property tax burden of the owning corporation. I also am annoyed that it is called a “park” as that implies, here in Hartford, that it is public, which it is not. It is, in fact, a highly secured, gated space which is aggressively anti-public and sends a strong message that this corporation views the surrounding community as an enemy or a liability and not as a neighbor.