The kicked-out developer of Hartford’s minor league baseball stadium said it has just stepped away from a different project in the capital city.
Centerplan Development said that's because its anchor tenant for a high-profile pharmacy project has just backed out.
In February, a month after Centerplan was already late and overbudget on the stadium, the Hartford Redevelopment Agency gave the developer a chance at another project. This one was much smaller -- a Rite Aid pharmacy on a busy corner in the Upper Albany neighborhood not far from West Hartford. That’s on the other side of town from the stadium.
But in a letter to the agency this week, Centerplan’s Jason Rudnick said that Rite Aid backed out -- and the deal, which has been in the works since last year, is off.
"The anchor tenant had made a determination at the corporate level that they did not want to move ahead with the development in Hartford at this time," Rudnick told WNPR. "It has nothing to do with the stadium, it has nothing to do with that development."
Rudnick said it’s an unfortunate change, but he praised community leaders who supported the plan and who have long advocated for something to built on this land. It’s a project that is more than a decade old and, and the land on which it sits is still vacant.
Mayor Luke Bronin’s staff endorsed Centerplan’s proposal at the redevelopment agency back in February. We asked Bronin how that happened, given the trouble the developer was happening at the stadium across town.
"There had been some concerns about the stadium project and some concerns, broadly shared, that Centerplan was in over their head on the baseball stadium," the mayor said. "I think the redevelopment agency made the judgement at that point that a more modest, mixed-use residential and retail development was more squarely within Centerplan’s capacity and experience."
Earlier this week, the city threw Centerplan off the stadium job. Bronin said there’s no new update.
