Over the weekend, community leaders gathered in the North End of Hartford for a groundbreaking ceremony for a $34 million renovation of the M. Swift & Sons Factory, which will include food businesses, a kitchen incubator, and an indoor hydroponic farm.
At 65,000 square-feet, the long-vacant building was an eyesore in the predominantly African-American Northeast neighborhood. The developer, Community Solutions, involved hundreds of residents in the redevelopment.
We played a small role in this project through a 2011 $50,000 Vibrant Communities Initiative grant to the City of Hartford. (The VCI program is no longer available, but check out our other current funding opportunities!) In addition, we included the Swift Factory in our Making Places Survey of Connecticut’s industrial heritage.
This project would not have been possible without the federal and state historic rehabilitation tax credit. Merrill Hoopengardner, president of the National Trust Community Investment Corporation and the leader of the national tax credit coalition, came in from D.C. to celebrate the project’s success. (NTCIC was a key investor.) Also present were Senator Richard Blumenthal, Congressman John Larson, Mayors Luke Bronin and Shari Cantor, descendants of the Swift family, and many other supporters of this important project.
