Front Street's First Tenant

Front Street is the brand-new, but empty, retail development that helps anchor Hartford’s downtown revitalization.  But as WNPR’s Jeff Cohen reports, it looks like Front Street has its first signed tenant.

 

There's still sort of vacant feeling on Front Street, where finished glass storefronts don’t front any stores.  Or anything else.  But that could soon change.  Now, developers for the project across the street from the Connecticut Convention Center say they've got a renter: a movie theater combined with a restaurant and a bar.

 

Peter Christian works for the Greenwich-based HB Nitkin Group.  He says his company has signed a lease for roughly one-third of the project.  Christian says his new tenant is a company that will pair four or five movie theaters with food and drink. The venue could open by the middle of next year.

 

Christian wouldn't name the tenant, but he did said it has experience with similar concepts in the south and midwest.

 

Front Street is the last big part of downtown Hartford's construction project called Adriaen's Landing.  It follows several other completed projects -- a new convention center, a new science center, new hotels,new downtown residential units, and new parking.  The effort to bring more people to downtown Hartford was begun under former Governor John Rowland.

 

For WNPR, I'm Jeff Cohen.