$400,000 to Help Link Downtown Hartford Cultural Attractions
May 2011
An arts-based economic development plan to link Hartford’s cultural institutions with pedestrian and bicycling routes running from Bushnell Park to the Connecticut River has received a $400,000 grant from the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.
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| Downtown Hartford is an unusually compact historic district packed with more than 45 cultural assets and destinations within a 15-minute walk. The iQuilt Plan calls for linking those assets with a vibrant and innovative pedestrian network. |
The project – known as iQuilt – would establish a “quilt” of pathways weaving together downtown Hartford’s key cultural sites and institutions to promote economic growth and the redevelopment of the Capitol district.
The iQuilt area would consist of a half-mile square area bounded by Buckingham/Charter Oak Avenue, I-84, the Connecticut River and the Capitol. Almost all the key cultural destinations within the quilt, including the Capitol, Bushnell Park, The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford Stage Company, the Old State House, and the new Connecticut Science Center, are within a 15-minute walk of each other.
The pathways would make it enjoyable to walk from one cultural site to another with offerings such as public art, education and entertainment activities, vendors and small parks.
Partners in the iQuilt project are the Greater Hartford Arts Council, City of Hartford, MetroHartford Alliance, Metropolitan District Commission, Greater Hartford Business Improvement District, Bushnell Park Foundation, State of Connecticut; and Bushnell Memorial Hall Corporation, which serves as fiscal agent. The Hartford Foundation grant will be awarded over three years to complete the design and to provide start-up support.
The Bushnell and the Arts Council initiated iQuilt in 2008 after the Urban Land Institute, during an evaluation of Hartford’s challenges and opportunities for economic growth, recommended the city “focus on thoughtful, creative in-fill projects to link Hartford’s arts and cultural sector.” A vision plan, funded in part by a $50,000 grant from the Hartford Foundation, was completed in 2009, with input from more than 1,800 people. Hartford’s 10-year master plan, “One City, One Plan,” adopted in 2010, lists iQuilt as a key component.
Hartford native Douglas Suisman, principal of Suisman Urban Design of Los Angeles and the recipient of the 2006 American Institute of Architects’ international award for best urban design, and Hartford architect Tyler Smith of Smith Edwards Architects, winners of the 2009 Connecticut Governor’s Arts Award, are the project’s planning principals. For more information about the iQuilt plan, visit www.theiquiltplan.org.
The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving is the community foundation for the 29-town Greater Hartford region, dedicated to improving the quality of life for area residents for the past 85 years. The Foundation receives gifts from thousands of generous individuals and families, and in 2010, awarded grants of more than $29 million to a broad range of area nonprofit organizations. For more information about the Hartford Foundation, visit www.hfpg.org or call 860-548-1888.