From 1981: Middletown Told To Develop More Downtown Housing

The following article is from 30 years ago today, published in the Hartford Courant on January 9, 1981. It was written by Jeff Kotkin.
-----------------------------
A hired consultant Thursday warned city economic development leaders that Middletown’s central business district may begin losing a portion of its regional sales as building accelerates in the area’s outlying towns.

John Loranger, who has partially completed a report with the Economic Development Commission, said as Middletown’s population remains stable and the number of persons living in other towns increases, retail shopping may begin to move out of the center city. He said Middletown remains the area’s retail cetner, but said such a designation may erode during future years.

He pointed to the proposed construction of a major shopping mall in Cromwell as evidence of the possibility of business moving out fo the city’s center. To keep existing downtown businesses stable and attract more shops to Main Street, the city may have to look into increasing the amount of nearby available housing, Loranger said.

“The likelihood of bringing more businesses in to serve fewer numbers of people is remote,” he said.

The city should try to further encourage building residential developments close to downtown. For example, he said, the Redevelopment Agency property for which a motel once was considered might be used for apartments.

Loranger mentioned several factors that show that the downtown area remains commercially vital. During the past few years, he said, Metro Square was built; Harborpark was completed; several redevelopment projects were undertaken and retail sales have risen much faster than the inflation rate. But he did warn that because the city’s population increased slightly during the past 10 years, the city will have to take some steps to assure its downtown business district of enough shoppers.

In his analysis, Loranger said to accomplish that goal Middletown can both encourage development within its own borders and discourage development in other towns. City and business officials already have discussed informally using a federal Department of Housing and Urban Development program to delay construction of the Cromwell mall. Loranger alluded to that kind of action in his report Thursday.

“The primary issue here is the degree to which activity and costs for implementation of such strategies is apportioned between public and private enterprise,” Loranger said. “A secondary issue is the degree to which Middletown may seek to influence development activity outside of its borders, deemed to have negative impact on the city.”

Commission member Edgar F. Beckham, a dean at Wesleyan University, agreed with much of Loranger’s assumptions. He pointed to the possibility of developers building thousands of additional apartments in Westlake, situated in the northwest section of Middletown, and at Century Hills, located a few miles away in Rocky Hill. If people live there, he said, additional shopping centers probably will gravitate in that direction.