As plans to revamp the West Hartford Center are under way, residents of the Connecticut city are now beginning to get an idea of what their buzzing center of town could look like in the future.
"What we have in the center is very, very special," said West Hartford Town Manager Rick Ledwith at a project update meeting April 8. "It is the premiere living, working, dining, shopping experience in Connecticut within 60-70 miles of West Hartford."
But streets in the community need repair, trees are decaying, parking is an issue, and traffic and pedestrian safety is a major concern, CT Insider reported April 9.
The West Hartford Center Infrastructure Master Plan first kicked off in the fall of 2022, with a proposal to revitalize the popular dining and shopping destination in the town's heart by replacing and enhancing sidewalks, crosswalks and other infrastructure.
The project is now in the semifinal design stage, with West Hartford and Stantec, a global design and engineering consulting firm, with offices located in Hartford, working together.
At the April 8 meeting, a "hybrid plan" was presented detailing the design direction for LaSalle Road and Farmington Avenue, both of which are lined with restaurants and stores.
Taking into consideration the character of the town as well as its parking, outdoor dining, business needs, and pedestrian and traffic safety, the design options presented improve on the current state of the city center, but do not go as far as some of the previous options discussed, Ledwith said.
Drawing from roundtable discussions with residents and business owners over the past several months, West Hartford has so far developed plans for both LaSalle Road and Farmington Avenue.
LaSalle Road
Currently, LaSalle Road has two-way traffic with angled parking on both sides of the street, CT Insider noted. The sidewalks are narrow, with no more than 6 percent of the streetscape planned for pedestrians, compared to 70 percent of the streetscape being devoted to parking and travel lanes.
Based on public feedback, Stantec synthesized input into a new direction for the project's design, said Travis Ewen, the engineering company's project manager in West Hartford, at the recent meeting.
The hybrid proposal for LaSalle Road includes both angled and parallel parking, slightly reducing parking to 88 on-street spaces, but adding loading zones for deliveries.
Additionally, sidewalks will be expanded by roughly 5 ft., allowing for more pockets of outdoor dining as well as a slightly wider landscaped area and narrowed travel lanes. The hybrid design option has the most trees of the other proposals, with 52 native street trees proposed compared to the 36 there already.
West Hartford also plans to install traffic calming measures, such as raised crosswalks and curb extensions, Ewen said, who added that a significant reduction in crosswalk distances also would contribute to pedestrian safety and walkability.
Farmington Avenue
Similarly, the proposed hybrid design for Farmington Avenue includes expanded sidewalks and new and added trees along the street.
Currently, 57 percent of Farmington Avenue is devoted to vehicle traffic and parking, and, depending on the side of the roadway, up to another 8 percent is dedicated to pedestrians. For parking, the proposed design option includes 78 on-street angled spaces, a slight increase compared to the 67 pre-pandemic spaces, and some loading zones.
Outdoor dining will primarily remain the same, CT Insider noted, but sidewalks will be expanded to a width of 10-ft., and crosswalk distances also will be reduced. In the proposed design option, bicycles will share a lane with motor vehicles.
One notable change will be how drivers get in and out of the Farmington Avenue parking lot, said Duane Martin, West Hartford's director of community development.
Because the road will have only one lane in each direction, there will no longer be a left-turn lane into the driveway on Farmington Avenue as that will become a signaled exit instead of an entrance. Conversely, the South Main Street parking lot driveway will become an entrance rather than an exit.
Each Street Project to Last Several Phases
But plans to revamp West Hartford Center are not solely based on those two roadways, as the project is focused on the development as a whole, a Stantec official said.
Throughout the center, residents and visitors who frequent the area can expect to see more pedestrian amenities such as bike racks, benches and seating areas, public art, new pedestrian lighting, more accessible pavement and improved crosswalks.
As for construction, the town aims to break up work on LaSalle Road and Farmington Avenue into six and seven phases, respectively, "really taking a kind of block-by-block approach," said Ewen.
Dividing the project into four- to six-week sub-phases and doing some work during after-hours will help to minimize disruptions as much as possible, Martin explained.
The construction costs for LaSalle Road are estimated to be $4.6 million, while the Farmington Avenue project is likely to have a price tag of about $5.8 million, CT Insider reported.
Martin added that while the exact start date is still uncertain, the goal is to get it completed in two construction seasons, meaning that if the effort begins in the spring of 2025, it will likely wrap up in the fall of 2026, he said.
While the West Hartford Center plans are under way, the town also has other projects in the works, such as its Vision Zero initiative, designed to rid the city's streets of traffic-related fatalities and injuries. Additionally, it has plans for a bicycle facility, a wayfinding signage project, and an electric vehicle infrastructure — all of which are complementary initiatives to significantly improve the town, Martin explained.
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