What's going on with Renaissance?

Developments are piling up quickly so I figured I'd put up some links to help anyone who's lost track:

Monday, October 6: The Republican majority on the City Council said this week it won’t take a stand on Depot Square until the Bristol Downtown Development Corp. makes a recommendation.

Mayor Ken Cockayne and the three GOP councilors – Henri Martin, Eric Carlson and Rich Miecznikowski – said that “in the interest of good faith negotiations and contractual agreements” they have to follow the agreed-on process for a decision on the project. LINK

Saturday, October 4: Bristol Downtown Development Corp. leaders are worried about potential litigation in the wake of the city’s hiring of an outside consultant to review the financial plans submitted by Renaissance Downtowns for the initial phase of the proposed Depot Square project.

Jennifer Arasimowicz wrote in an Aug. 25 email to the nonprofit’s lawyer that she had “basically laid out how I think the city stupidly set us up for a lawsuit” with its hiring of East Hartford’s Goman + York Property Advisors.

Arasimowicz said in the email that she had laid out the case “in a momentary lapse of all common sense” in a secret email exchange she had in August with Frank Johnson, a BDDC board member and former chairman.

She wrote the email obtained by The Bristol Press to plead with attorney David DeBassio to find a way to keep details of her exchange with Johnson confidential. LINK

Friday, October 3:  A Hartford-based multi-unit housing developer who partnered until recently with Renaissance Downtowns has agreed to buy an historic Main Street office building.

Martin Kenny, a Hartford apartment developer, has signed a purchase deal for 10 Main St. that will likely be complete by year’s end. Construction could begin as soon as next spring, he said Thursday

“It’s a great old historical building with great bones, in tremendous condition,” Kenny said.

Kenny and a Bristol firm, D’Amato Construction, pulled out of the Depot Square project in recent weeks to focus on the prospect of creating housing in the five-story building that would not require a city or state subsidy.

“We stepped aside,” Kenny said, calling it “a political football there with the project” planned for the former mall site.

“I want to do something” rather than “going to town meetings and having everybody mad at each other,” he said. LINK

Tuesday, Sept. 30:  With a showdown on the future of Renaissance Downtowns drawing near, a partisan split has developed at City Hall as the three Democratic city councilors endorsed the developer while their Republican counterparts remained on the sidelines.

“Renaissance has made a commitment to Bristol and Renaissance deserves renewed commitment from us,” said city Councilor Mary Fortier. “Renaissance has taken risks in Bristol and Bristol needs to move beyond the risk.”

After all, she pointed out, “no one is banging down the doors of city hall for a chance to develop this parcel.”

The three Democratic councilors – Fortier, Ellen Zoppo-Sassu and Calvin Brown – each issued long statements detailing their positions on Renaissance and its Depot Square proposal to revitalize the 15-acre city center site where the mall once stood. LINK (Note: The full statement of each of the councilors is on this blog below.)

Copyright 2014 All rights reserved. Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com