Commentary—

Bond Money Down The Rathole

By William A. Collins

Bond financing,

Far from free;

Costs big bucks,

To you and me.

Former governor John Rowland was always fond of expressing his love and support for the cities. Mostly he validated that love with generous gifts of bond money. The granddaddy of those gifts was Adriaen’s Landing, a $770 million pile of steel and concrete along Hartford’s riverfront. Rising even now are a convention center, hotel, parking garage, shops, and maybe soon a “science center.”

The announced purpose of this humongous expenditure was to breathe new life into downtown Hartford. But a walking visit to the site suggests otherwise. Since Adriaen’s is not connected to downtown, and since the intervening space is barren of pedestrian interest, one suspects a different motive for the whole enterprise.

For want of another explanation, developer profit seems the best bet. The former governor was actually more a lover of developers than of cities, and this massive monstrosity is surely making a lot of bucks for someone. Unfortunately, it’s hard to see how it will significantly benefit poor Hartford or us taxpayers.

For those who haven’t seen the project, Adriaen’s is separated from downtown by, among other things, another failed boondoggle, Constitution Plaza. Tall office buildings and professionally landscaped grounds grace its multiple acres. The only things missing are people. When the office workers have gone home, its long, empty walkways invite skateboarders or silent meditation.

Adjacent is Statehouse Square, where Connecticut’s first Capitol has been handsomely restored in a pedestrian-friendly open space. This one got a lot of bond money too. But what you don’t see are pedestrians, even on a pleasant Sunday afternoon. Nor are there shop windows, eating places, or artists. Even the one visible fast food place was closed. In midsummer.

Although Adriaen’s is the state’s biggest bonding fiasco so far, there are others. UConn, for example, is just finishing up a $91 million football stadium, mostly for the greater glory of alumni lawmakers. It certainly won’t do anything for downtown East Hartford. Hallowed Norwalk, too, has $40 million in tax credits for booze-maker Diageo to build still another unneeded office building. And Bridgeport received a fortune for a baseball stadium and a hockey arena. Now both of these house popular minor league teams, but have done nothing to restore the depressed downtown.

And each year the General Assembly confronts another new laundry list of such proposals, mostly squired by members themselves. Some plans also come from lobbyists for developers. Worse luck, lawmakers largely fail to adequately scrutinize any project’s impact on state coffers, and prefer to hand out approvals like lollipops. The result is that interest and amortization costs now run about ten percent of the whole state operating budget.

If the fruits of this spending were the rebirth of Connecticut’s central cities, perhaps the cost would seem worthy. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. While many bonded projects, especially small ones, possess considerable intrinsic merit, the big ones mostly feature civic glory or serious profits for the builder. Inspired grants like the conversion of a Bridgeport department store into artists’ studios are few and far between.

Nonetheless, the press treats as fact the wild political claims of governors that this or that massive expenditure will somehow restore vibrancy to a hapless Nutmeg metropolis. No such luck. But even if Governor Jodi Rell also fails to fathom vibrancy, she can at least fruitfully cut back on the bonding. Assuming, that is, that she has no crying need for a hot tub or a few days respite in Vegas.

(Columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative and a former mayor of Norwalk.)