Constitution Plaza

Mixed use development in Downtown Hartford, Connecticut, US

Constitution Plaza is a large commercial mixed use development in Downtown Hartford, Connecticut. It is located on the east side of the downtown area, near the Connecticut's Old State House. The plaza consists of two main plazas, which are connected by an elevated bridge. The northern plaza is reminiscent of an Italian piazza, with a 40 foot tall granite clock tower and patterned brick paving. The southern plaza is dominated by a central fountain.

Constitution Plaza was built for $42 million and completed in stages from 1961 to 1964. Its planning and construction were spearheaded by a committee of local corporate leaders and business interests, beginning in the late 1950s. After running into financial turmoil in its early stages, the project was eventually taken over and completed by Hartford based Travelers Insurance Company. It was the first substantial urban redevelopment project in Hartford and replaced a run down, working class, ethnic neighborhood known as Front Street. Subject to periodic flooding (before the construction of riverfront dikes and Interstate 91) and in serious physical decline, this neighborhood was nostalgically known for its large Italian American population and its eclectic collection of local restaurants, businesses and shops. The merit of its wholesale demolition to accommodate Constitution Plaza is still locally debated nearly six decades after it occurred. (The name "Front Street" which so well gilded through decades of its lamented demise, was resurrected as the official project name for a large mixed use development to be built adjacent to the new Connecticut Convention Center complex, although this project has experienced numerous delays and has lost a number of sponsoring developer partners over the last several years.)

Situated at the eastern side of Hartford's downtown area, near Connecticut's landmark Old State House, this complex of office towers, commercial buildings, parking garages, and luxury apartments covers three city blocks, and is connected by a series of elevated pedestrian plazas and bridges. Constitution Plaza is considered by some as a "great but unfinished planning idea", and by others as a fallacy of the broken promises of mid century, American urban renewal. Set on a gently sloping site, the raised plaza originated from the idea of setting it at the elevation of Hartford's once vibrant Main Street and its numerous, but now long gone department stores that sat a block west. The Main Street shopping district was to be connected to Constitution Plaza by overhead pedestrian bridges, down along both Temple and Kinsley Streets across Market Street, but for various reasons they were never built. (Kinsley Street no longer exists, having been absorbed into the site for the "State House Square" office and mixed use complex)
A proposed arena and convention center was to be sited east of the Plaza across Columbus Boulevard and adjacent to I 91, but these facilities were also eliminated from the original plan and later moved a block west of Main Street in the mid 1970s, which became the original Hartford Civic Center and was rebuilt in the mid 2000s as today's XL Center. As a result, Constitution Plaza today sits several feet above the city's streetscape, disconnected and mostly devoid of pedestrian life except during workdays. This is also a primary reason that the plaza's original "retail court" was never successful. However, as later office tower development occurred on adjacent blocks, in particular to the east and south, additional pedestrian bridges were built to connect them to the main Plaza level. Most successful was the culmination of a 25 year effort through the much regarded Riverfront Recapture initiative. Fulfilling a long held planning goal, Constitution Plaza is now connected to the river's edge via a new (also elevated) pedestrian space that crosses over (a vastly reconfigured) Interstate 91 to a large waterfront amphitheater and walkways up and down river, and then across the Connecticut River to East Hartford.

Constitution Plaza was the site of many annual public events, such as the popular Festival of Lights during the holiday season (which has since been relocated in a scaled down form to nearby Bushnell Park), and a number of concerts and sing alongs. In its earlier years, it hosted several outdoor Easter Sunday services and the Taste of Hartford food festival.