The developers of the new minor league baseball stadium in Hartford are also building apartments around the venue. They're looking for ways to make some of those units accessible to people with lower incomes.
Officials held a ceremonial groundbreaking earlier this week for the baseball stadium. Soon, across the street, the work to build the retail, residential, and entertainment project will begin.
That work includes 300 units of housing. While the plan is to build them all at market rate, Hartford's city council wants the developers to make a good faith effort to try and lower the rents for some of the units.
Bob Landino is with DoNo Hartford LLC, the firm building the entire project. "We heard the input from several councilpersons and the public at large," he said. "And to the extent that we can close some of the gap between market rate development and affordable development with some type of financial assistance, we're just seeing what's available."
To that end, Landino's firm is having preliminary meetings with state-funded agencies like the Capital Region Development Authority to explore whether there could be public money to help make the units more affordable for those with lower incomes. One of those meetings is Thursday night.
Landino said doing that wouldn't change the type of units that are built. It would simply change the way in which the rents are paid.
