Proposed Hartford, CT-Springfield, MA NBA team

[The_Admiral]

43 minutes ago, pmoehrin said:

There's no need for an indoor shopping mall in conjunction with an arena in 2024

Hartford was artlessly and unintentionally ahead of the game: every arena in 2024 is a mall.

[Brass]

On 5/10/2024 at 11:05 PM, pmoehrin said:

 

I'd just assume tear down the XL Center and build a new arena in the same spot because, as you said, there's nowhere else to go, and I doubt you're beating the XL Center's location even if there was.

 

I know they've slapped a few band-aids on it over the years, but the design of the arena itself has been outdated for decades, which is why I wouldn't favor another renovation. There's no need for an indoor shopping mall in conjunction with an arena in 2024, which is now a giant atrium of mostly wasted space.

 

In the interim, the Wolf Pack could play in either Springfield or Bridgeport, maybe even splitting some time between both. And after 3-4 years, Hartford would have a new state-of-the-art arena to attract concerts, special events, and potentially an NHL team.

 

Regardless of what happens with the NHL, they're going to have to do something because that arena is about to turn 50, and it looks like it.

 

The problem is that the XL Center is in such a cramped spot. You can't really expand out beyond the footprint without causing a massive inconvenience to the surrounding area. A new arena would no doubt require a larger footprint to accommodate the things the XL Center needs.

 

On 5/10/2024 at 11:49 PM, The_Admiral said:

Hartford was artlessly and unintentionally ahead of the game: every arena in 2024 is a mall.

 

Which is funny, because there are no stores in the mall portion anymore. Just a bunch of empty rooms with Wolf Pack posters on them.

[Digby]

Not quite the same, but Worcester tore down their sad, empty downtown mall 10 years ago and had an adjacent minor-league ballpark a short time later, and a wildly successful one at that (which I hate to say as a child of the PawSox, but...) Hartford's AA and AHL and USL teams have all been "adequate but not exceptional" in terms of attendance, no? Not sure that bodes well. Just be happy with UConn, maybe they could get some Connecticut Sun games in there too but I suppose that defeats the Sun's entire purpose of filling space at the casino arena.

 

(Interesting note though that the Sun are playing a game at the TD Garden this year, for the first time. Little reversal of the old Celtics tradition. I kind of miss barnstorming games, but I guess we only do those in Mexico City and Abu Dhabi instead of Hartford nowadays.)

 

The other thing is, in the modern state of things in pro sports, I don't know that the 91 corridor is culturally distinct enough to be its own major-league market (leaving aside all the obvious economic changes there of the past two generations). Tough to ever draw any sort of attention away from the long-established Boston and New York teams. Not exactly an underserved market.

[The_Admiral]

I've always maintained that Hartford would have continued to be a viable NHL market--and only an NHL market--if they'd stayed committed, but once they pulled out, I think Boston and New York filled the void permanently. It's really not hard to imagine the quirky old Whalers as the official team of the self-impressed Extremely Online the way that their nauseous replacement has.

 

I remember reading something on r/hockey from a guy who claimed to know stuff who said that Bettman never had the knives out for Hartford-New Haven the way he did for the Canadian WHA cities, and that it was really the Devils of his early tenure that he wanted to permanently solve the problem of. Probably been full of crap, but interesting nonetheless.

 

 

[pmoehrin]

4 hours ago, Brass said:

The problem is that the XL Center is in such a cramped spot. You can't really expand out beyond the footprint without causing a massive inconvenience to the surrounding area. A new arena would no doubt require a larger footprint to accommodate the things the XL Center needs.

 

Take out that giant atrium and/or the parking garage and you have all the room you need. Compare what that added footprint space gives you versus the TD Garden. It's about the same.

 

It would cause issues, but every plan will have issues. You either deal with the inconvenience for a few years, stick with an arena that's outlived its prime by at least 20 years, or move to a less desirable location. No replacement or renovation plan is going to check all of those boxes off.

[BBTV]

 

I'm not sure the driving factor for the low-ish attendance (though I'm sure there's a few teams that would love these numbers.). A few searches show that the majority (if not all) of their sell-outs were against either NYR or BOS.  The arena/mall was small and sub-par (by today's standards, but it's not like the bar was very high for NHL arenas in the early '80s.). But prices would be significantly higher now, with much higher expectations for game-day experiences.  It may actually be harder to draw than before.

 

It looks like the only transit in the area is buses, which isn't going to cut it if you're relying on pulling from the 1M people that live outside of the city proper (itself only 120k)

 

I really want to love the idea of Hartford back in the NHL, but at this point, an entire generation has been born and grown up without them, and is likely Boston or NYR fans, and I'm just not sure how they become a draw once the novelty / nostalgia runs its course.

 

Then, we'd have an Oilers/Titans situation with the branding / history, and if they were the Hartford Texans*, it's dead before it starts.  People want the Whalers brand back as much if not more than they care about Hartford itself.  

 

*I'd laugh so hard if they went with Hartford Texans just to make a point.

[The_Admiral]

Remember that recorded attendance switched at some point from a more-or-less accurate count to phony-baloney "tickets distributed," which even recently had the Hawks claiming 20,000+ in the building when anyone could see that was not the case. The Civic Center held, what, 14,000 with lots of bad seats? Not great, but not "holy crap we HAVE to put this team in Raleigh, North Carolina," either.

 

The Nords had sort of the inverse problem, where their attendance was generally very good but their TV was crap. Both teams were victims of powerful owners nearby.

[schlim]

Even funnier then Hartford or Springfield ever getting any type of professional top tier team is the gross logo designed by the marketing group that thought this would be a good way to go viral.

 

Turns out, they got the job done.

[JerseyJimmy]

I think if you really want to try a top-flight pro team in a northeastern market without one, then... well, realistically, keep going north, because the only way that's going to happen is if Quebec or Hamilton get the NHL. but if you really, really want to try to make this work in the US, I think there's a minuscule but non-zero chance an NHL team in Albany could work. it won't, but I could at least imagine a scenario where it could.

 

also, since the topic of "MSAs that should be a CSA" was brought up: Charleston and Myrtle Beach.

[who do you think]

If Hartford isn't an option than Albany definitely isn't either. Hartford-Springfield has way more people.

[pmoehrin]

12 hours ago, JerseyJimmy said:

also, since the topic of "MSAs that should be a CSA" was brought up: Charleston and Myrtle Beach.

 

Way too far apart and there's a clear break in population between the two cities.

 

But if you wanted to pair Myrtle Beach with Wilmington, NC/Cape Fear, you might have a case there, because those two metros are right next door to each other, and it's nothing but small beach communities all along the route between the two cities. So it's hard to pick a point where the influence of one metro ends and another begins, but they are clearly defined separate metro areas.

 

That sounds a lot like what a CSA should be.

[The_Admiral]

 

Nice little slideshow about the destruction of Hartford.

[pmoehrin]

3 hours ago, The_Admiral said:

 

Nice little slideshow about the destruction of Hartford.

 

The I-84/I-91 interchange absolutely massacred that city beyond repair. What people think of as "downtown Hartford" is basically a three-by-four city block partition of land. Venture any further, and you're either walking on the highway or into someone's living room. It is the single most boring city of 100k+ residents I've ever been to.

 

If you're from out of town, there's no point in even leaving the hotel after eight o'clock because there is literally nothing to do after the sun goes down. You don't have a choice of downtown bars to go to. You have the downtown bar. That's it. Of course, I'm exaggerating a bit, but not by much. Anyone living nearby goes to their local watering hole down the street. Nobody in their right mind would ever go to Hartford for a night on the town.

 

Hartford's only protections from becoming a ghost town are its status as an insurance hub and being the state capital. Beyond that, it's basically a giant suburb sandwiched between New York and Boston.

[Brass]

38 minutes ago, pmoehrin said:

 

The I-84/I-91 interchange absolutely massacred that city beyond repair. What people think of as "downtown Hartford" is basically a three-by-four city block partition of land. Venture any further, and you're either walking on the highway or into someone's living room. It is the single most boring city of 100k+ residents I've ever been to.

 

If you're from out of town, there's no point in even leaving the hotel after eight o'clock because there is literally nothing to do after the sun goes down. You don't have a choice of downtown bars to go to. You have the downtown bar. That's it. Of course, I'm exaggerating a bit, but not by much. Anyone living nearby goes to their local watering hole down the street. Nobody in their right mind would ever go to Hartford for a night on the town.

 

Hartford's only protections from becoming a ghost town are its status as an insurance hub and being the state capital. Beyond that, it's basically a giant suburb sandwiched between New York and Boston.

 

There have been multiple plans to big dig 84 and 91, but honestly, it'll probably never happen. The city is trying to rebuild from the north end, which is a great idea, but between a bar in Hartford or a bar in West Hartford, I'm going to West Hartford ten out of ten times. It is a much nicer place to go, and also a much safer place to go. Unless you're in the boundaries of one of the hospitals in Hartford, good luck.

 

Also, bars in the city closed at 6/7 PM even when the Whalers were in town!

[The_Admiral]

I've always liked this essay, pace the absence of a copy editor: https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/city-by-city/hartford-connecticut/

 

Quote

Most of the young professionals who now work in Hartford never lived there, so they can’t be accused of fleeing. There’s very little to recommend it, whether you’re young and hip or you’re looking for stability and childrearing. To live in Hartford you have to be something of a nostalgist, a romantic, or someone looking for unironic left-wing politics, not someone who’s going to worry about leaving your car on the street. You can’t be in search of restaurants that are open on a Sunday. There is no burgeoning art scene or burgeoning anything. The truth is that you can get the “authenticity” of poverty and blight in many other places while still getting a generation of young artists and dreamers looking to get published or recognized or stoned or :censored:ed or each of these simultaneously. I wanted to believe, for a little while, in a Hartford scene, and maybe I just wasn’t cool enough. But even most of the activists left meetings and headed for the highway. For the yuppie types, this goes without saying. The narcissism of parenting is getting to abandon any pretense of caring for places “when it’s for my kid”—that sort of attitude was made for cities like Hartford. Better opportunities abound, for hipsters and yuppies and all types in between, and thanks to the geography of the northeastern United States, many of them are only a couple hours’ drive away. So far from God, so close to New York and Boston.

 

I love Hartford. I loved it in the abstract growing up twenty minutes to the south and loved it concretely in the four years or so I lived there. I miss Hartford now. I would love to tell you I believe in its resurrection. Hartford’s failings aren’t the fault of it or its people or even its government. They’re the product of our system, of our people. Hartford is the ugly little truth that stomps around in the brain of the American people, the perfect inversion of Silicon Valley, a place with almost 400 years of history and no future. It is ten years younger than Boston, but nobody takes guided tours of its cobblestone. Technically in the middle of a megalopolis, you can stand in Hartford’s center and feel utterly alone.

 

Thing of it is, it's not just Hartford that's falling victim to New York, it's just the one that fell the hardest. Read about how St. Louis lost its formidable advertising industry to mergers, acquisitions, and a belief that nothing between the coasts matters. Even Chicago has started to feel like a place you only live in when you couldn't make it in New York or Los Angeles. It's a real problem.

[pmoehrin]

16 hours ago, Brass said:

There have been multiple plans to big dig 84 and 91, but honestly, it'll probably never happen.

 

I think any conversation about seriously revitalizing Hartford has to include a proposal like that because I can tell zero fs were given about Hartford when that I-91/I-84 interchange was built.

 

They could have moved it a mile or two north or south, but nope. Both highways go right through downtown. Moving those highways underground would make the city more interconnected and give developers thousands of feet of extra space to develop.

 

However, I also tend to agree with your assumption that this won't happen. They're going to need support from the rest of the state and likely some federal funds on top of that as well.  And given the choice between increasing taxes or having Hartford remain a dump, a lot of people in Connecticut will vote to keep Hartford a dump, especially if it means potentially upsetting their precious work commute for months if not years.

 

Hartford can and should be a far nicer city than it is.

[JerseyJimmy]

it kinda feels like Hartford only exists as a city for who want to live close to NYC or Boston but both can't afford living in the cities themselves and can't decide which one they want to be closer to. there is no reason to move there when Providence exists.

[pmoehrin]

11 hours ago, JerseyJimmy said:

it kinda feels like Hartford only exists as a city for who want to live close to NYC or Boston but both can't afford living in the cities themselves and can't decide which one they want to be closer to. there is no reason to move there when Providence exists.

 

It's not like that at all though.

 

Hartford has only around 120k residents, and it's not even among the top 200 largest US cities. There are some college towns with a bigger population than Hartford. But the metro is 1.2 million, which puts it right around 50th. The TV market is almost a top 30 because New Haven metro is also included, which is about the 100th largest metro area in the country.

 

"Hartford" is really a big-city suburb without the big city, and it's actually quite unique in that. Of every television market in the top 35, it's the only one that isn't home to a city of at least 200k residents. Not only that, but Hartford is barely even half that.

 

Why the Hartford/New Haven market is able to do this is because Hartford County alone is home to over 200 towns, cities, and villages. That's really what "Hartford" is.

[Sykotyk]

11 hours ago, pmoehrin said:

 

I think any conversation about seriously revitalizing Hartford has to include a proposal like that because I can tell zero fs were given about Hartford when that I-91/I-84 interchange was built.

 

They could have moved it a mile or two north or south, but nope. Both highways go right through downtown. Moving those highways underground would make the city more interconnected and give developers thousands of feet of extra space to develop.

 

However, I also tend to agree with your assumption that this won't happen. They're going to need support from the rest of the state and likely some federal funds on top of that as well.  And given the choice between increasing taxes or having Hartford remain a dump, a lot of people in Connecticut will vote to keep Hartford a dump, especially if it means potentially upsetting their precious work commute for months if not years.

 

Hartford can and should be a far nicer city than it is.

 

As a roadgeek, this was a remnant of the initial 'reason' for interstates in the first place. City to city movement. So, freeways would go from one downtown to the next downtown.  The main route would always manage to go right to downtown, no matter how odd the routing would make it. I-70 veers south to St. Louis while I-270 is by far the shortest route (and I-70 east of I-55 actually continues the I-270 mile makers).

 

Only the toll roads were smart to avoid downtowns due to their own costs. Ohio and Indiana Toll Roads both skirt around bigger cities. Ohio Turnpike is south of Youngstown, north of Akron, South of Cleveland, and south of Toledo. PA Turnpike avoids Pittsburgh and Philadelphia proper. NY Thruway is east of Buffalo, and south of Rochester. And skirts the north edge of Syracuse. Allowing through traffic much less local city traffic from jamming up the commute (though Buffalo's 'free' stretch from Orchard Park to up by Lancaster was always slowed by the toll booths).

 

Anyways, some places they realized their mistakes and fixed them. In PA, I-79 was routed west of Pittsburgh after initially going through. I-70 was supposed to follow I-376 to downtown from the Turnpike and then multiplex with I-79 to Washington. Leaving the underbuilt I-70 stretch from Washington New Stanton as a freeway with no number. But the sheer number of people that would take the shortcut led to the route being moved to follow it.

 

In Maine, I-295 and I-95 switched routes. Relabeling the old I-495 as the I-95 to follow the toll road and old I-95 became I-295. Which was the freeway going right through downtown Portland.

 

Partly this is a problem pre-GPS because so many people would choose to just stay on the route # they know they'll be on later. Explaining to someone that "Take I-90 to I-94 to I-90" might as well be trying to sell them fake rolex watches. They don't understand why they can't just stay on the same route. And usually would. I had a friend drive from KC to Indianapolis regularly and it too him YEARS to realize that taking I-70 was not shorter through St. Louis than the bypass. He had assumed, like KC and Indianapolis, that the bypass was some large out of the way circuitous route that surely going straight through the city and dealing with the traffic from the airport to the Poplar Street Bridge was faster. Until he finally did what I said and looked at a map and understood.

 

Now, GPS usually helps with that. But there's still some people who are absolutely oblivious on where they're going if the little electronic device doesn't tell them where to go.

 

Tying this back to the Hartford problem... I-84 and I-91 suffered from intense NIMBYism through Connecticut and they basically put it the one place people wouldn't have the social power to object: right through downtown. Look at how I-84 moved from Milldale at the 84/691 interchange and zigzags through a patchwork of other state freeways before slamming into downtown. Even the last couple of miles and the phantom CT9 stack interchange that was should've provided a northwest bypass.

 

Also, I-84 was supposed to go to Providence, not dump everyone onto the Mass Pike. That was supposed to be I-86, a short connector route that could've been built along any alignment. The I-384 was built as I-84 before NIMBYs stopped its construction and only I-384, the freeway stretch of route 6, AND the I-395 Lodge Spur were part of the route. Rhode Island never even got a chance to build any of theirs without freeway revolts.

 

I-91, too, got squeezed right along the river when it could've followed CT15 across the bridge to East Hartford and found a path north over there. But without any NW bypass where CT9 ends at I-84, there's no other real alternative. Had CT9 finished north of Hartford, it would've made a great Hartford bypass for I-91 and possibly get labeled as I-91 to draw traffic away from downtown that is just passing through.

[pmoehrin]

11 minutes ago, Sykotyk said:

Also, I-84 was supposed to go to Providence, not dump everyone onto the Mass Pike.

 

I'm not sure if I heard that or not before, but it's not something I would recall, and it definitely makes sense.

 

With no traffic, it's a 90-minute drive from Hartford to Providence. The distance as the crow flies is 65 miles. That probably shouldn't be considering Hartford to Worcester at 56 miles apart can be done in an hour flat. But that's also taking 84 virtually the whole way, which just about runs in a straight line between the two cities.

I completely agree with you about people getting married to road numbers theory, especially with older drivers. I have an Aunt who still insists that 95 is the fastest way to get from New York to Boston, even though it is neither the fastest nor the shortest way to go. It's simply the easiest in terms of following directions.

 

23 minutes ago, Sykotyk said:

I-91, too, got squeezed right along the river when it could've followed CT15 across the bridge to East Hartford and found a path north over there. But without any NW bypass where CT9 ends at I-84, there's no other real alternative. Had CT9 finished north of Hartford, it would've made a great Hartford bypass for I-91 and possibly get labeled as I-91 to draw traffic away from downtown that is just passing through.

 

That would be far better than what they have now, and it wouldn't take any less driving time, but as you said, NIMBYs made sure that didn't happen. Not much else I can add to that. Very comprehensive post on the subject.