Hartford

The city of Hartford has settlement roots that stretch back to the early 1600s. Yet despite the city's long history, which includes a refusal to surrender its colonial charter to the British government in the late 1600s and, later, a reputation as the capital of America's insurance industry, many meeting and convention planners have long overlooked Connecticut's capital city.

Hartford's standing in the meetings industry, however, is about to change with the highly anticipated grand opening of the Connecticut Convention Center.

Downtown Digs

According to H. Scott Phelps, president of the Greater Hartford CVB, the Connecticut Convention Center is currently 75 percent complete and scheduled to open in downtown Hartford in June 2005. Plans for the 540,000-square-foot convention center, which will be the second-largest convention center in New England, include a 140,000-square-foot exhibit hall, a 40,000-square-foot ballroom and 25,000 square feet of breakout space divided among 16 meeting rooms.

The facility will be Hartford's first true convention center, and meeting planners are eager to take advantage of it.

"Hartford is not a destination that has been experienced by a lot of groups and associations, mainly because there was a lack of facilities before," says Terry Bickhardt, president of operations and marketing for the Waterford Hotel Group. "What we are finding is that from a historical and an arts standpoint, the city is really of great interest to people who have never visited Hartford."

The Waterford Hotel Group is scheduled to open the 409-room Marriott Hartford Downtown in summer 2005. The hotel will connect to the convention center and offer its own meeting facilities that are expected to total 13,500 square feet.

Another Waterford Hotel Group downtown property, the Hilton Hartford, is currently closed while undertaking a $31 million renovation and expansion project. When it reopens early next year, the Hilton Hartford will feature 392 guest rooms and approximately 14,000 square feet of meeting space. According to Bickhardt, both hotels will earn four-star ratings.

Kathy Parker, an event planner and coordinator for The Goodman Speakers Bureau and president of the Hartford-based Yankee Chapter of MPI, agrees with Bickhardt's assessment of Hartford as a meetings destination.

"We had the [Hartford Civic Center] before the convention center, which has trade show space and the like, but it didn't really have the same draw that I think the convention center is going to have," she says.

Though the city is abuzz over the opening of the new convention center, the Hartford Civic Center will continue to play a major role in luring groups to the city. Located downtown among all the new development, it features nearly 69,000 square feet of exhibit space and seven meeting rooms totaling more than 21,000 square feet. In addition, the civic center is connected to the Veteran's War Memorial Coliseum, which is the home of the American Hockey League's Hartford Wolf Pack and hosts music concerts, entertainment productions and other sporting events, including University of Connecticut men's and women's basketball games.

The Hartford Convention Center is one of the cornerstones of downtown Hartford's Adriaen's Landing development, a 30-acre, $770 million effort to reenergize Hartford and its surrounding region. Other components of the project include the previously noted Hartford Marriott Downtown, as well as the Front Street residential, retail and entertainment district, and the Connecticut Center for Science and Exploration.

The Front Street development includes a renovation of the historic Hartford Times Building, and the creation of a public square, street-front shops and restaurants, expanded curb and garage parking, an ESPN interactive sports entertainment center, and a host of residential units.

"There are a number of downtown housing projects going on, and when I say housing projects, I mean high-end apartments and condos," the Greater Hartford CVB's Phelps notes. "That is something that is going to be a big improvement in this town and help make it a 24-hour city."

The Connecticut Center for Science and Exploration is envisioned as a regional destination that will have a strong educational focus, while also offering cultural, entertainment and educational value. It is currently scheduled to break ground in 2007.

Re-berth of the River

As it has since Hartford's colonial settlement days, the Connecticut River has taken on a huge roll in the redevelopment of downtown Hartford.

"Hartford has really captured the riverfront area with a big program that has taken place over a number of years," says Karen Staples, national sales manager for the Greater Hartford CVB. "Our riverfront has won all kinds of national and international design awards and is gorgeous."

The riverfront revitalization program Staples refers to is a 120-acre park system directed by Riverfront Recapture, a non-profit organization dedicated to restoring public access to the Connecticut River.

"A whole component of the Riverfront Recapture program is outdoor adventure," Staples continues. "There is a ropes course and a whole team-building environment. On the river, there are all kinds of boating activities that you can do through Riverfront Recapture. For instance, if you are a corporation and you want to have a crew race and have teams, [Riverfront Recapture] will bring you on the water, teach you [how to row] and set you free. And they do that at an incredible boathouse."

The Greater Hartford Jaycees Community Boathouse is a two-story Victorian-style structure that opened in 2002. In addition to housing the Riverfront Community Rowing Program and the program's equipment, the boathouse features the second-floor Lincoln Financial Community Room, a 2,600-square-foot function space with a deck overlooking the Connecticut River and the Hartford skyline.

According to Staples, there are 6,000 hotel rooms in Greater Hartford, and the CVB can offer 1,500 committable rooms in its downtown core. In addition to the soon-to-open Marriott Hartford Downtown and the Hilton Hartford, other notable downtown properties include the Crowne Plaza Downtown, with 350 guest rooms and more than 7,000 square feet of meeting space, and the Goodwin Hotel, with 6,600 square feet of meeting space and 124 guest accommodations, including the J.P. Morgan Suite, a five-room unit that is available for private functions and was once the residence of its famous namesake.

Adding to the allure of Hartford's downtown package is its compact nature.

"For site tours, we always make sure that a portion of the tour is walking, so [planners] can see how walkable the city is," Staples says. "For instance, if they were going to use the Hartford Civic Center and the Connecticut Convention Center, you can walk between the two of those, and our hotel package downtown is very walkable."

Groups need not limit their hotel search to the downtown core. There are a number of meetings-capable hotels outside Hartford's downtown area, including the Sheraton Hotel at Bradley International Airport, with 237 guest rooms and 18,000 square feet of meeting space; the Doubletree Hotel Bradley International Airport, with 153 guest rooms and 4,000 square feet of meeting space; the Radisson Springfield-Enfield, with 177 guest rooms and 13,000 square feet of meeting space; the Marriott Farmington, with 381 guest rooms and 14,000 square feet of meeting space; and the Hartford Marriott Rocky Hill, with 251 guest rooms and 8,600 square feet of meeting space.

Accessible and Affordable

Perhaps initially lured by Hartford's array of revitalization projects, planners are finding other attributes that make the city a prime destination for meetings. For starters, the city is located midway between New York and Boston. All told, some 23 million people live within a two-hour drive of Hartford.

"I was recently talking to a client and their convention is actually a little large for Hartford, so I said to him, 'It seems like you are really anxious to get here,' and he replied, 'It's your demographics,'" the Greater Hartford CVB's Staples says. "So we don't use that 'location, location, location,' slogan lightly, because we do know we have the best demographics in terms of our [geographic location]."

Hartford is easily accessible by land and by air. Interstates 84 and 91 intersect in downtown Hartford, Interstate 95 cuts just south of Hartford, while Interstate 90 runs a short distance north of the city.

Bradley International Airport, the second-largest airport in New England, is one of the city's biggest selling points. Located 12 miles from Hartford's downtown core, the airport offers approximately 240 flights per day, with daily nonstop flights to 34 destinations.

"The nice thing about Bradley [International Airport] is that it is an international airport, but it is not one of these huge airports that is the size of a city, and it is convenient to get to,"  says Parker of the Yankee Chapter of MPI.

The presence of low-fare carrier Southwest Airlines is another plus, according to Staples.

"We have Southwest Airlines into Bradley, which comes in handy, especially when dealing with associations," Staples says.

According to the Greater Hartford CVB's Phelps, planners will also find Hartford is an affordable destination.

"We also offer affordability, particularly when you look at our neighbors to the north and south—Boston and New York—and even [Providence, R.I.], we are more affordable than those three," Phelps says.

New England Excursions

Once the travel arrangements are set and the meeting venues are secured, planners can take comfort in the knowledge that there will be plenty of excursion options for attendees. Some may want to experience the city's historical heritage, which includes the former residences of authors Mark Twain and Harriett Beecher Stowe, as well as the Huntington Homestead Museum, the well-preserved birthplace of Governor Samuel Huntington, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and statesman of the Revolutionary War and early Republic.

"We have more places on the National Register of Historic Landmarks than any other region in the country other than the New Orleans region," Phelps says. "There are a variety of walking tours and garden tours."

To view priceless works of art, attendees can visit the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, the nation's oldest public art museum. Originally built in 1842, the museum houses more than 45,000 works of art and exhibits more than 15 special shows each year. Many exhibits are inspired by masterworks in the museum's holdings, while others are solo shows by emerging artists.

The performing arts are well-represented in Hartford, especially at The Bushnell Center for Performing Arts. Originally constructed in 1930, The Bushnell completed a $45 million expansion project in 2001 that added a 907-seat theater to the existing historic structure. Today, The Bushnell hosts more than 500 events annually, including Broadway traveling productions and performances from the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, the Connecticut Opera and the Accenture Jazz Series.

Planners can also keep in mind that Hartford offers a central location that is convenient for excursions outside of the city.

"While Hartford is a compact city, the state of Connecticut is very compact as well—you can fit the entire state of Connecticut in what people call metropolitan San Antonio or metropolitan Houston," Phelps says. "Within an hour of Hartford are both the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos, which are popular excursions for pre- and post-convention trips and spousal programs. Mystic Seaport and Mystic Aquarium are within an hour, and Yale University and the Basketball Hall of Fame [in Springfield, Mass.,] are also within an hour."

Then there is the draw of quintessential New England, according to Parker of the Yankee Chapter of MPI.

"We have four seasons and when all four seasons behave the way they are supposed to, it is beautiful," Parker says.

For More Info

Greater Hartford CVB  
860.728.6789     www.enjoyhartford.com