On Hartford’s Front Street, Infinity Music Hall stands idle, its new owners hunkered down until coronavirus restrictions on live performances are significantly lifted and the venue can return to closer to normal.
All along Front Street businesses are watching, waiting and wondering when people will return. The COVID-19 outbreak has dealt a major setback to an area envisioned as a new neighborhood connecting the heart of downtown with the city’s riverfront to the east and where the state has invested $250 million over the last 15 years.
Front Street’s mix of entertainment and restaurants, a regional campus of The University of Connecticut and nearly 200 apartments is a microcosm of challenges faced by urban centers across Connecticut and the country in the public health crisis.
Infinity partners David Rosenfeld and Tyler Grill said it just doesn’t make sense to gradually book smaller shows, worry about whether patrons will turn out and potentially get hit with losses deeper than those from just staying closed.
“Our best chance to survive and to prosper is to wait,” Rosenfeld said. “We don’t want to open piecemeal because we are only halfway in business.”
As Connecticut seeks to control the spread of the virus, it is trying to strike an uneasy balance between restricting crowds and social distancing with the needs of businesses struggling to survive. The national outlook for the economic recovery is grim with some experts saying it could take years.
Before the pandemic, hitting its stride
In the 1990s, Front Street’s entertainment district — the first part of the neighborhood to be completed — was envisioned as supporting the events at the Connecticut Convention Center, just across Columbus Boulevard. The UConn campus and 180 apartments came later adding a 24/7 vibrancy to the area.
And despite a slow start, Front Street, by most accounts, was hitting its stride in recent years. The area’s entertainment district was now anchored by a reinvigorating Infinity Music Hall, a movie theater and a growing tenant roster of restaurants.
Now, the pandemic has taken a heavy toll on the entertainment district not only because the convention business is shuttered and may be for months to come. There also are few UConn students attending “in-person” classes, and downtown corporate employees continue to largely work from home.
All three formed the bedrock of the business base for the entertainment district. Already one restaurant, Ted’s Montana Grill — a mainstay since 2014 — has closed permanently.
“The winter is going to be very, very long for us,” said Carlos Stetzelberg, owner of Rush Bowls, which sells blended fruit and vegetable bowls. “It’s a hard blow for us. Front Street has been a desert. There’s nobody walking around. It’s been very empty, the street.”
Stetzelberg and his wife Arzu opened Rush Bowls a year ago in a storefront space on the UConn campus. He estimated that as much as 80% of business came from the convention center, UConn and downtown workers.
Hopes faded as Labor Day came and went without the return of downtown office workers. Now, it remains unclear when and how many will return because more will work at home permanently, he said.
UConn said it has about 2,100 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at the Hartford campus. Monday through Thursday, there are about 100-200 students in Hartford with classes that have an “in-person” component. Fridays are quieter, UConn said.
“Many of our classes are hybrid/blended, though, so it is up to the discretion of the instructor whether or not they are meeting in person or remotely on a particular day,” UConn spokeswoman Stephanie Reitz said. “This makes the actual daily headcount very difficult to assess.”
How long can businesses hang on?
When the pandemic bore down on Connecticut, there was a flurry of event cancellations at the convention center. Now, there are no bookings through the end of January, according to the Capital Region Development Authority.
Michael W. Freimuth, CRDA’s executive director, said it is possible the convention center could remain closed through June. He said the convention center normally draws an average of 300,000 visitors to the city each year.
How quickly Front Street can bounce back from the pandemic could also become a barometer for the city as a whole as many of the same troubles are being faced from the heart of downtown, with a closed XL Center arena, to the neighborhoods. Much will depend on how long businesses can hang on, how long there are restrictions are in place, when people generally feel safe to go out and when a virus vaccine is widely available.
“If we can hold on to some of these guys and get through this, the recovery is going to be far easier,” Freimuth said. “If we lose them all, and we are back to zero, how long did it take us to get here?”
The entertainment district was completed in 2010, but its first lease wasn’t signed until two years later, as the country slogged its way out of the 2008 recession.
The owners of El Pollo Guapo, coming up on their second anniversary at Front Street, say they remember how you couldn’t get a seat in their restaurant at lunchtime.
Now, the Hartford restaurant is opened just at lunch, and business is down 75% from where it was before the pandemic, co-owner Heather Riedl said.
Riedl said she and her husband Roy want to ride it out at Front Street, love the way their space turned out and consider the area their flagship location.
“Ultimately, we’re still running a business, so we have to think with our business minds and not just our emotions,” Heather Riedl said. “We’re so hoping and relying on people coming back to downtown Hartford and coming back to work. It’s the only way any of the businesses down there are going to survive.”
Apple Cinemas to open
Front Street landlord HB Nitkin Group, of Greenwich, declined to comment on any negotiations with its tenants at Front Street. But Freimuth has told the CRDA board of directors that Nitkin is involved in discussions with tenants.
Peter Christian, Nitkin’s development director, pointed to some upbeat signs at Front Street in a brief statement.
“We do look forward to the opening of Apple Cinemas, and all our apartment units remain well leased,” Christian said.
One bright spot for the entertainment district was a new operator taking over at the movie theater well into the pandemic. Apple Cinemas says it has invested half a million dollars in renovations, including the addition of now-popular recliners and new sports bar theme.
Movie theaters are now able to operate in Connecticut and Apple had planned a July opening. But that has been pushed back to November. Nationally, the movie-going public has been slow to return to theaters, causing studios to further delay the release of big budget blockbusters.
“It is a little bit underwhelming, I would say,” said Shiva Shan, an owner of Apple Cinemas, based in Walpole, Mass. “But we have hopes that the movie industry will come back. Maybe later this year or toward the beginning of next year.”
To the south and west of the entertainment district, Front Street’s two apartment complexes have held their ground for the most part. The 121-unit Lofts at Front Street, opened in 2015, has an occupancy of 85%, compared to 91% just before the pandemic.
At 81 Arch St., where another 53 rentals started leasing a little over a year ago, occupancy is 81%, basically, just two percentage points higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Building a new audience
When Rosenfeld, Grill and a third partner, Eric Nesi, took over ownership of Infinity in 2019, they brought with them a decade of experience booking shows at 10 regional venues in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
They saw the need to expand Hartford’s audience by booking more shows geared to a younger demographic and further push ahead with standing-room, high-energy shows. And the partners say they had made significant in-roads, including a double show last fall with West End Blend and Bella’s Bartok that drew 750.
“Many of the attendees had never been in this building before,” Rosenfeld said.
Rosenfeld and Grill also had pushed ahead with plans to hold outdoor concerts on Front Street this year and had secured all permits. The city also was interested in perhaps expanding outdoor concerts elsewhere in Hartford, they said.
Grill said opening at say, 50% would drop to maybe 15% with social distancing.
“We’re certainly not in a business to get people to sit,” Grill said. “That’s not our brand. It’s to bring people together in a safe, fun environment for people to really let loose and enjoy themselves.”
Rosenfeld said Infinity is working with creditors and Nitkin to develop repayment plans. The partners made the decision to hold onto PPP money, knowing that it will turn into a loan because it was not spent right away.
“Our hope is to husband our capital and survive until we have a business again,” Rosenfeld said.
Contact Kenneth R. Gosselin at kgosselin@courant.com.
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