Meriden City Center Initiative

Meriden City Center Initiative gets a Yellow Light!

Current Status: MCCI gets a Yellow Light because the New Haven to Hartford to Springfield Commuter Rail IS COMING...by 2011 says CONNDOT.  We as a City can choose to participate or just sit back and be just "another station on the line". 

The Meriden City Center Initiative cannot move from the conceptual to the reality phase until a flood control solution is substantially completed in downtown Meriden.  It could be called a project well ahead of its time!  It can't move until flood moves.

While the HUB Demolition has been completed, the MCCI project is currently limited to downtown developer tours.  No additional jobs, no property tax contribution, no traffic flow improvements...just no economic development activity at this time.  

In 2001, it was a consensus of Meriden City and Community leadership that in order to garner State and Federal financial participation in any municipal projects, it was incumbent upon our City to have a Comprehensive Plan detailing a long term vision and creating a greater context within which individual Municipal projects could be considered.

In 2002 an audacious draft of a Comprehensive Plan detailing such a vision was unveiled.  Since the release of that plan the City of Meriden has received State and Federal funds in excess of $2.5 Million dollars for projects including Environmental Investigations, Flood Control and Demolition of the Meriden Hub building.  In the award of each of these grants, it was clearly stated by Congresswoman Johnson and Gov's Rowland and Rell that having the dedicated community based coalition in the City Center Initiative and its vision made the decisions to support these projects an easy one.

In 2004 and early 2005, with the financial support of the State of Connecticut through a Department of Community and Economic Development Grant, we have endeavored to further and refine the 2002 recommendations.  Supplementing the preliminary design of proposed transportation, flood control, and utility improvements with environmental investigations, market analyses, studies of economic and fiscal impact, all performed in the context of a broad based community engagement process, the Phase II City Center Initiative Recommendations are a comprehensive "Road Map" for identifying OPPORTUNITIES FOR ACTION and a STANDARD and GREATER CONTEXT against which proposals can be measured to ensure a long term consistent path to economic Growth and stability for our community.

These recommendations set a high mark, but this is a mark that the City of Meriden is worthy of aspiring to.  We have a biased to action. BUT this bias is seeded in the confidence that these recommendations are based upon SOUND TECHNICAL and PROFESSIONAL expertise and JUDGMENT, developed with Community participation.  With the City of Meriden as the Beneficiary of our endeavors, there has never been a better opportunity for our community to consider the MERITS of City Center Redevelopment as the most viable alternative to developing the waning supply of land in the suburban ring and to reversing the deplorable trend of degradation of the City's core.

Rev. 03/25/2008